The photo of Mohammed Salem, Reuters journalist showing Inas Abu Maamar cradling the body of his five-year-old niece Saly, who died along with her mother and sister when an Israeli missile hit their home in Khan Younis in October, won the 2024 World Press Photo.
The photo was taken 10 days after the start of the conflict. “It was a powerful and sad moment and I felt the image largely summed up what was happening in the Gaza Strip. » said Salem, “It’s a really deeply moving image,” he said. Fiona Shields, head of photography at the Guardian and president of the international jury. “Once you see it, it sticks in your mind. It's like a kind of literal and metaphorical message about the horror and futility of conflict. » and represents “an incredibly powerful argument for peace,” he added.
South African Lee-Ann Olwage, for GEO magazine, won the “Story of the Year” prize with his intimate portrait of a Malagasy family living with an elderly parent with dementia. “This story addresses a universal health issue through the lens of family and care,” the judges said.
The “Long-term Project” prize was awarded to the Venezuelan Alexandre Cegarra for the series entitled “The Two Walls”, a work started in 2018 in which the photographer draws on his direct experience to recount the vicissitudes of migrants crossing Mexico on their way to North America.
The prize in the “Open Format” category was awarded to Julia Kochetova for his website which combines photojournalism with a documentary and diary style to show the world what it means to experience the war, that of Russia against Ukraine, as a daily reality.
The winning images were selected from 61,062 submitted by 3,851 photographers from 130 countries. The global winners were selected from the 24 winning projects of the regional prizes.
