(The Hague) Feeling the bottom of her rounded belly as she was evacuated, injured, from the devastated maternity hospital in Mariupol, Iryna Kalinina, pale-faced, struggles. The image, highlighting “the murder of future generations of Ukrainians”, won the World Press Photo’s top prize on Thursday.
“Miron”, who took his name from the word “peace”, was stillborn following the Russian airstrike, almost two weeks after the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Half an hour later, his mother, barely 32 years old, also died.
His photo taken by Evgeniy Maloletka of The Associated Press (AP) ‘captures the absurdity and horror of war’ and ‘sheds light on the murder of future generations of Ukrainians’, the jury of the most prestigious competition in Ukraine said. photojournalism.
The Ukrainian, who was one of the few photographers to document the siege there, said he drove to the hospital soon after a projectile hit him and saw volunteer rescuers carrying a woman on a stretcher .
“For me, this image is the image I want to forget. But I couldn’t,” Maloletka said in a video posted on the World Press Photo website.
PHOTO RAMON VAN FLYMEN, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Associated Press photographer Evgeniy Maloletka
“Hopefully all the work we’ve done will somehow help people understand. Maybe it will be used in a case against Russian war crimes,” he added.
A symbol of Ukrainian resistance, the port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, was besieged and bombarded for long weeks by Russian forces at the start of the invasion.
The strike on the hospital on March 9, 2022, which left three people dead and some 17 injured, immediately sparked condemnations around the world.
Mariupol finally fell in May 2022 after fierce resistance. According to Kyiv, it was 90% destroyed and at least 20,000 people died there. The European Union had described its siege as a “major war crime”.
Troubled waters
The World Press Photo has also awarded the “Story of the Year” prize to the “Afghan Peace Prize”, a series of nine photos by Mads Nissen, awarded in 2021 for the photo of an embrace during the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19.
This Danish photographer hopes to arouse, beyond an awareness, “a commitment with the millions of Afghans who desperately need food and humanitarian aid at this time”.
The “long-term” project prize was awarded to Armenian photographer Anush Babajanyan who highlighted the impacts of poor water management after the end of the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, aggravated by the climate crisis.
As for the Egyptian Mohamed Mahdy, he was rewarded for his images of an endangered fishing village.
The photographers’ work will be exhibited from April 22 in Amsterdam, where the foundation is based, before being shown around the world.