AP Image Victorious: Mariupol Hospital Attack Wins World Press Photo Award

Evgeniy Maloletka, a photographer from the Associated Press, won an important award called the World Press Photo of the Year. This was because of a picture he took of medical workers in Ukraine carrying a pregnant lady after a Russian attack destroyed a maternity hospital there.

On March 9, 2022, a photographer from Ukraine captured an image of a woman who had been hurt badly. The picture showed her left hand was on her lower left stomach and there was blood everywhere. This horror happened during Russia’s attack in the eastern city at the beginning of a war.

The 32-year-old woman was named Iryna Kalinina, and even though she got help right away, she passed away after half an hour of giving birth to a baby who wasn’t alive. She named him Miron before dying.

Maloletka said in an interview that he can never forget the story of one of Russia’s most brutal attacks, which was captured by him in a photo – despite it being very difficult to do. Julie Pace, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor at AP, said she is proud of Maloletka for his bravery.

The AP Director of Photography J. David Ake said that Evgeniy Maloletka did a great job making an unforgettable image, which could be seen throughout the world. He managed to show something that nobody ever knew in a way noone has ever seen – just like all the other photographers around the globe who do their very best to make us aware of what’s happening in our planet.

The AP Video journalist Mystyslav Chernov and AP producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, both of who are also Ukrainians, went to Mariupol at the start of Russia’s full-scale attack which began on February 24th 2022. This started one of the biggest wars Europe had seen since World War II. They stayed there for over two weeks, recording how Russian soldiers attacked the city and hurt hospitals and other locations that civilians used. An investigation by the AP suggested that up to 600 people died when a theater being used as a bomb shelter in Mariupol was hit on March 16th last year.

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The three reporters were the only foreign journalists still located in the city when they finally managed to get away safely.

Joumana El Zein Khoury, who is the executive director of World Press Photo Foundation, told the Associated Press that the jury members had made the decision quickly – that Maloletka’s photo should be awarded with this amazing prize.

The jury members said from the start that it was important for this project to win. This is because it highlighted how war, such as the Ukrainian War, can affect many generations beyond just one. The team knew that even though being in Mariupol could be dangerous, they had to stay there to listen to people’s voices and emotions and share it all around the world.

Maloletka from Mariupol won a big prize called the European regional World Press Photo Stories Award in March. His pictures from Mariupol also won other awards, such as the Knight International Journalism Award, the Visa d’or News Award and even the Prix Bayeux Calvados-Normandie.

“It’s really great news that a Ukrainian person won the competition by showing the terrible things that Russian forces did to Ukrainian civilians,” he said. “The pictures we took in Mariupol are important evidence of a war crime against Ukrainians.”

Mads Nissen, a two-time winner of the World Press Photo awards from Denmark, was announced Thursday as the Photo Story of the Year for his work titled “The Price of Peace in Afghanistan.” This series showcases everyday life in Afghanistan in the year 2022.

Anush Babajanyan from Armenia won an award called the Long-Term Project Award for “Battered Waters” given by VII Photo and National Geographic Society, while Mohamed Mahdy from Egypt won the Open Format award for “Here, The Doors Don’t Know Me.”

Brent Lewis, a photo editor from The New York Times said that the 4 global winners of the competition picked this year came from some important and urgent topics. They were chosen among more than 60,000 entries sent in by people from 127 countries all over the world. These winning photos and stories help us see how people around the world are actually similar in many ways.

Maya Levin recently won an award for her photo of Israeli police officers hitting people who were carrying the coffin of Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known journalist from Al Jazeera. Worse still, she was murdered while doing her job reporting about an Israeli military raid in the West Bank. After getting complaints from other countries, the Israeli Defense Forces eventually admitted that one of their soldiers might have been responsible for shooting her. Even though they realized this, they declared the case finished without saying it was on purpose.

Photographer Emilio Morenatti, who won a Pulitzer Prize and also lost a leg in Afghanistan while reporting news, was given an award for pictures he took of people in Ukraine who were hurt and had to have parts of their bodies amputated due to the Russian invasion.

Those interested can learn more about Russia and Ukraine’s war by visiting https://bigbignews.net/russia-ukraine.