Posted at 1:00 p.m.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
November 2016 — Mosul, Iraq
The dust barely has time to settle between the passage of Iraqi army Humvees evacuating the victims and those returning to the front. The Islamic State group, which terrorized world opinion and the populations under its control, is in the process of losing control of Mosul, its capital in Iraq. Men, women, children and soldiers follow one another on the stretchers of this small triage centre. Pencil in hand, this Iraqi officer is about to identify the body of one of his compatriots killed by a sniper.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
November 2016 — Mosul, Iraq
As fighting between the Islamic State group and Iraqi army soldiers rages in Mosul, civilians try to flee by all means. They have been under the control of the terrorist group for more than two years. After about twenty kilometers of walking in the desert, they finally reached the Kurdish positions. They will be tens of thousands having to rebuild their lives in a refugee camp.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
January 2013 — Kuujjuarapik, Nunavik
This is an image that has always imposed itself on me. We see neither the faces nor the prey of the hunters. However, the moment is perfectly suspended and a gentle tension emerges from this painting captured during a seal hunt in Kuujjuarapik. The hunters had only two bullets left when one of them hit a seal that came out to take a breath of air at the surface. Unfortunately for them, climate change has robbed them of the prey. With winters being warmer than before, fresh water from the river becomes more abundant near the coast. And with lower water salinity, prey often sink to the bottom of the water.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
January 2013 — Kuujjuarapik, Nunavik
Thomas Weetaltuk experienced many years of homelessness in Montreal. It was during this period that I met him. Over the years, Thomas became a friend and told me about the most difficult times of his life. Unfortunately, his journey is far from unique. After years of legal proceedings, he finally won a class action against an abusive priest. Leaving alcohol and the streets behind, he returned to live with his family and his community in Nunavik. Upon his return there, he became his mother’s caregiver and reconnected with her son and grandchildren.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
May 2012 — Montreal
In the middle of maple spring, the anti-capitalist demonstration of the 1er May 2012 quickly turns into a riot. Like everyone else, I run left and right. Police and demonstrators are fairly dispersed as the demonstration draws to a close. I then witness an arrest that seems completely random and arbitrary. Judging by the reaction of the friends of the man who takes a fist in the face, one wonders if the policeman chose his target well.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
July 2016 — Montreal
It’s one of the rare moments in my career where I’ve seen people from all walks of life come together with such strength and hope for a cause. That summer, the Black Lives Matter movement finally arrived in Montreal. The demonstrators gathered in the metropolis that day were not very numerous, but their peaceful intensity made this demonstration a special moment.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
October 2013 — Mauritania
After growing up as a slave in a family that is not her own, Noura Mint Ahmed fled her masters at 18. She had received one correction too many. Unfortunately, slavery remains frequent in this African country of 4.65 million inhabitants.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
October 2012 — Aleppo, Syria
This photo is not perfect, it even has a lot of flaws, but I chose it to talk about these unique people that we meet in the report. The Dr Osman, whom we met in Aleppo and whom we see here treating a young boy victim of a bombardment by the Syrian regime, is one of these outstanding people. He was imprisoned and tortured by the forces of Bashar al-Assad, then threatened by religious extremists. Despite everything, he worked tirelessly in what remained of the Dar al-Shifa hospital in Aleppo, targeted more than a dozen times by regime planes.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
September 2012 — Aleppo, Syria
There are those moments that we would have preferred to believe were impossible. How to explain the smile of this Syrian teenager running across a street guarded by a sniper from Bashar al-Assad’s regime? The young man was shopping, very close to a front line in a residential area of Aleppo. A line we have not crossed.