Reuters photographer wins World Press for Gaza image

Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem won the World Press Photo of the Year award on Thursday with an image of grief and pain in Gaza, a heartbreaking photo of a Palestinian woman cradling the body of her young niece. The image, taken in Khan Yunis just days after Salem’s baby was born, shows Inas Abu Maamar, 36, holding in her arms the body of five-year-old Saly, who died along with her mother and her sister when an Israeli missile hit her house.

Salem, who is Palestinian, described the photo posted on November 2 last year as a “powerful and sad moment that sums up the general feeling of what is happening in the Gaza Strip.”

The image “truly condenses this feeling of impact,” said the president of the global jury, Fiona Shields, the newspaper’s head of photography. The Guardian. “It’s incredibly moving to watch and at the same time an argument for peace, which is extremely powerful when sometimes peace can seem like an improbable fantasy,” she added.

The World Press jury praised the care and respect of the image and its expression of a “metaphorical and literal glimpse of unimaginable loss.”

This is not the first time Salem has been recognized for his work in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More than a decade ago he received another World Press Photo award for another image of the human cost of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

In the other three global categories announced on Thursday, South African Lee-Ann Olwage won the Story of the Year award for her emotional series “Valim-babena,” published in GEO magazine. The project focused on the stigmatization of dementia in Madagascar, a topic she explored through intimate portraits of “Dada Paul” and her family. Lack of awareness around dementia means that people who show symptoms of memory loss are often stigmatized.

In the series, “Dada Paul,” who has been living with dementia for 11 years, is lovingly cared for by his daughter Zara. One of the featured images of him shows him preparing to go to church with his granddaughter, Odliatemix, a moment of normality and affection amid the challenges of dementia.

Photographer Alejandro Cegarra, originally from Venezuela and who emigrated to Mexico in 2018, won the Long Term Project award for “The Two Walls,” published by The New York Times and Bloomberg. Cegarra’s project, begun in 2018, analyzes the change in Mexican immigration policy, which has gone from a tradition of openness to imposing strict controls on its southern border. The jury said the photographer’s migrant nature gave him an empathetic, people-centered perspective, according to a press release.

Ukrainian Julia Kochetova won the Open Format award for “War is Personal.” The project stood out among coverage of the European conflict by offering a personal view of the harsh realities of war. On a website created for this purpose, the reporter combined traditional press photography into a kind of documentary-style diary that incorporates photography, poetry, sound recordings and music.

The Associated Press won the Open Format award in the Africa regional category with the multimedia story “A la drift,” created by journalists Renata Brito and Felipe Dana. The story investigates what happened to West African migrants who tried to reach Europe through a treacherous route across the Atlantic but ended up on a boat discovered with bodies in Tobago waters. The evocative use of photography, cinematography and detailed narrative, reinforced by expert design and multimedia elements, highlights the dangers faced by migrants and the human stories behind global migration issues.

Ebrahim Noroozi of The Associated Press won the Asia Stories award for his series “Afghanistan in Suspense,” which documents the country since the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021.

World Press Photo is an independent non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, founded in 1955.