Image of Mariupol birth victim wins World Press Photo Award

A photo by Evgeny Malloretka, a Ukrainian photojournalist for the Associated Press news agency, shows rescuers carrying Irina Kalinina, 32, from the rubble of a hospital in a dilapidated port city.

Her baby Milon, named after the word “peace,” was stillborn after the March 9, 2022 strike. Kalinina was seen holding her stomach while lying on her stretcher, and she died 30 minutes later.

“The jury felt that this image captured the absurdity and horror of war,” said jurors in their comments when the photo was chosen as the winner at a ceremony in Amsterdam.

“This is an accurate representation of the events of that year and evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces against Ukrainian civilians.”

Maloretka and his AP colleague video journalist Mstislav Chernov documented the horrors of Mariupol as the Russian invasion began for nearly three weeks.

“For me, this image is one that I would like to forget. But I couldn’t,” Malloretka said in a video released by World Press Photos.

“I hope that all the work we have done will help people in some way to understand. It may be used in a lawsuit against Russian war crimes.”

Moscow captured Mariupol last spring after a devastating siege.

Other global categories include “The Price of Peace in Afghanistan” by Danish photographer Mads Nissen, nine “haunting but beautiful” photographs depicting life under the Taliban, and Story of the Year by Politiken and Panos Pictures. year.

Nissen won the 2021 World Press Photo of the Year award for his photo of a hug during the Covid pandemic.

Armenian photographer Anush Babajanyan won the Long Term Project Award for VII Photo and the National Geographic Society for his series of photographs on water scarcity in Central Asia, “Battered Waters,” and Egyptian photographer Mohamed Mahdy won “His Images.” Received an Open Format Award at A disappearing fishing village.