UNICEF Photo of the year 2015

Et brutalt og sterkt bilde av to barn som griner i kaoset på den greske siden av grensen med Makedonia har vunnet UNICEF Photo of the year 2015. Fotografen bak vinnerbildet er Georgi Licovski fra Makedonia. Bildet viser to barn som ble borte fra foreldrene sine i kaoset da et stort antall flyktninger forsøkte å bryte gjennom de makedonske grensevaktene.

- Georgi Licovski har fanget den desperate situasjonen barn på flukt fra krig og vold opplever. Bildet er et snapshot som fanger både Europas dilemma og ansvar, sier Daniela Schadt i UNICEF Tyskland.

Andreplassen i konkurransen gikk til svenske Magnus Wennman for et bilde av sovende barn på flukt. Tredjeprisen fikk amerikanske Heidi Levine for et portrett av en palestinsk far og sønn som er alvorlig skadet.

- Fotografene i konkurransen har på dramatisk og levende vis dokumentert hva mennesker kan gjøre mot hverandre og deres barn. Med unike evner, gode blikk og empati viser de også mot, håp og utholdenhet hos barna, forteller juryformann Klaus Honnef.

Nedenfor kan du se de sterke vinnerbildene.

Førstepris UNICEF Photo of the year 2015

Georgi Licovski, Mazedonien, epa (european pressphoto agency)

The utter despair of refugee children. It was on August 21, 2015 on the Greek-Macedonian border, that this traumatic situation for two refugee children took place and was witnessed by photographer Georgi Licovski (European Press Agency). He was faced with an extremely unsettling situation: In order to appeal to the emotions of the Macedonian border troops, some refugees sent their women and children to the front lines. With the mass of people pushing from the back, children were separated from their parents and in some cases taken across the border by strangers while their parents and relatives were unable to get through. Another tragedy within this global tragedy that starts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – and obviously does not end in Europe. According to UNICEF estimates, 25% of the 730,000 refugees who entered the EU between January and November 2015 via the Balkans route were children and teenagers.

Andreplass UNICEF Photo of the year 2015

Magnus Wennman, Sweden, for Aftonbladet

Where the children sleep – refugee children on the road. They dream of home, their bed, their toys. And in their nightmares, it is raining fire, houses explode, their siblings die. Now they sleep in tents, containers, field hospitals, at street crossings and next to train stations in foreign countries. Or, like five-year-old Lamar, in a forest near Horgos in Serbia. She fled Baghdad together with her parents and her grandmother after their house was hit by a bomb. It took Lamar’s family three attempts to get from Turkey to Greece in a dinghy. Photographer Magnus Wennman simply calls his photo documentary “Where the children sleep”. It is basically a collection of horror stories from Homs and Aleppo, Daraa, Damascus and other Syrian cities. According to UNICEF, there is no safe place left for children in Syria after five years of civil war.

Tredjepris UNICEF Photo of the year 2015

Heidi Levine, USA , Sipa Press

What children have to endure. You need to be strong if you are a boy of five and have to see your father as Badruddin does in this photo by US photographer Heidi Levine, when he looks up to his father who sustained serious injuries during the Gaza War. And also if, even as a little boy, you have been close to death yourself. After a bomb attack, Badruddin had to have his liver removed, his mother and his four brothers and sisters were killed. “Healing and Resilience in Gaza” is the title of Heidi Levine’s photo series. The mother of three lives in Jerusalem, Israel, from where she keeps track of the events in the Gaza Strip. Is there such a thing as a “just war”? That is for military historians, philosophers, theologians and politicians to discuss. Only one thing is clear: there is no war that spares the children.