2023-12-21 14:15:35
It almost looks like a scene from a normal, carefree childhood. Five-year-old Lima rides her bike across a green meadow with two friends running behind her. Maybe it’s Lima’s first attempts on the bike, a moment that you remember for a long time as a child. Only the black smoke that rises in the background and darkens the sky disturbs the idyll. It suggests that this picture shows only a brief moment of lightness in a childhood that was not at all carefree.
This moment was captured by Polish photographer Patryk Jaracz. It is the UNICEF photo of the year 2023. He was on the way from Kiev to his homeland when he saw the dark clouds of smoke not far from the border in the Rivne region, he says. A Russian drone set fire to an oil storage facility. He stopped to photograph the scene. It was a coincidence that the three girls were there. The older two had just taught Lima how to ride a bike. “In a certain way, the winning photo represents a particularly beautiful moment in the three girls’ childhood. But only in one way. Because the rising smoke reminds us of the suffering that children in Ukraine are currently exposed to almost every day,” says Jaracz.
But children like Alina and her friends also gave hope, said UNICEF patron Elke Büdenbender at the award ceremony in Berlin. “Surrounded by bad news, we owe it to children worldwide to do everything we can to work together to bring about good news and transform precarious situations into acceptable ones. So that children everywhere can grow up in peace and dignity.”
Photo gallery
UNICEF Photo of the Year 2023 : UNICEF Photo of the Year 2023
Second place goes to German photographer Oliver Weiken for his report on child labor in Afghan coal mines. The “third prize” went to Russian-born photographer Natalya Saprunova for her report on the children of the indigenous Evenki people in Siberia.
“The situation in the world has certainly become more complex and complicated than it was at the beginning of this competition 24 years ago,” explained Klaus Honnef, chairman of the jury. “What remains may be the fact that children are above all one thing: children – no matter where and under what circumstances they live. The winning images express the elementary strength and confidence of the girls and boys.”
Christian Schneider Published/Updated: Recommendations: 6 Christian Schubert, Rome Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 33 Anna-Lena Ripperger Published/Updated: Recommendations: 8
With the international “UNICEF Photo of the Year” competition, UNICEF Germany honors images and reports from photojournalists who outstandingly document the personalities and living conditions of children. Last year, Argentine photographer Eduardo Soteras won the prize for a photo documentary about children in Tigra, Ethiopia, who are suffering from violence, displacement, malnutrition and a lack of drinking water as a result of an armed conflict with the central government.
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