Courageous women in photography award
Photographer Adriane Ohanesian has won with the 2016 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. The award, in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer killed while reporting in Afghanistan in 2014, recognizes "the exemplary work of women photojournalists who overcome extraordinary challenges to bring us images of pressing global issues."
Ohanesian is a freelance photojournalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has been reporting primarily in Africa since 2010 and has documented the civil war in South Sudan, the border demarcation between Sudan and South Sudan, the fighting in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, and most recently the conflict in Darfur.
Lynsey Addario and Paula Bronstein received honorable mentions for the 2016 award. All three women will be recognized at a reception in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, June 9, 2016.
Central Darfur
The jury awarded the top prize to Ohanesian for her "evocative images and tenacious dedication to documenting the effects of conflict on citizens in perilous regions." They stated that, "her perceptive, compassionate eye offers an extraordinarily personal glimpse into places the global community may not otherwise see."
Ohanesian has been primarily reporting in Africa since 2010. Her images have been published by Time, National Geographic , The Wall Street Journal among others.
The photographer receives $20,000 to support ongoing work.
The Sudan Liberation Army led by Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW) climb towards the front lines in the last rebel-held territory in Central Darfur, Sudan, March 4, 2015.
Central Darfur
Hundreds of women and children who have fled the fighting or are seeking shelter from the continued bombing by the Sudanese government's forces, live in a cave in Central Darfur, Sudan, March 2, 2015.
The unrest in Darfur has killed hundreds of thousands of people and millions have been displaced.
Central Darfur
Adam Abdel, age 7, was badly burned when a bomb, dropped on February 12 by a Sudanese government's Antonov plane, landed next to his family's home in Burgu, Central Darfur, Sudan, February 27, 2015. Two weeks later his burns were still healing. Treatment was difficult to obtain because the government denied NGOs and relief workers access to rebel-held territory.
In 2016, Ohanesia won a World Press Photo award in the Contemporary Issues single image category for this image.
Mogadishu
Men believed to be members of al Shabaab sit in the street after being arrested by Somali National Intelligence during a cordon and search operation in Mogadishu, Somalia, May 4, 2014.
South Sudan
On December 16 SPLA government soldiers looted and burned Nuer houses in the Juba neighborhood of Munuki West, South Sudan, January 19, 2014.Yemen
A mother who has fled the war in Yemen with her three children, comforts her baby who is sick and can not get access to medicine in the refugee camp in Obock, Djibouti, January 13, 2015.
Adriane Ohanesia
New York born Adriane Ohanesia studied cultural anthropology and conflict resolution at Colorado College and graduated from the International Center of Photography's photojournalism and documentary photography program.
A major focus of her work in South Sudan has been the impact that conflict has on isolated populations.
Kabul
Lynsey Addario received an Honorable Mention in the competition for her portfolio.
Gul Meena, 16, poses for a portrait in a shelter run by Women for Afghan Women in Kabul after being left for dead by her family in Nangahar province: her brother slashed her over a dozen times with an ax after Gul Meena fled an older husband who had beaten her and ran away with another man, in Afghanistan, May 28, 2014.
According to women's groups, shelters have been one of the great achievements of Afghanistan over the past twelve years. They have saved several thousands of women's lives by offering them a safe place.
Sudan
A dead government soldier with the Sudanese People's Liberation Army lies in the road in front of the base of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan as civilians pass by with water and food they collected from town during a lull in fighting between government and opposition forces in Bentiu, South Sudan, May 4, 2014.
Bentiu has changed hands between government and opposition control several times since the civil war began in December, and has been the scene of ethnic massacres where hundreds, if not thousands, have been killed in the past months, pushing over 20,000 into a camp for displaced inside the UNMISS camp outside the town.
One million Southern Sudanese have been displaced from their homes as the civil war rages in the country, pitting ethnic Nu'er against Dinka.
Lynsey Addario - Honorable Mention
Rahaf Yousef, 13, a Syrian refugee from Daraa, poses for a portrait in her family's trailer as she is surrounded by female relatives on the day of her engagement party at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, August 29, 2014.
Rahaf prepared to get married to another Syrian refugee, Mohammed, 18, in 20 days. While marriage under the age of eighteen was a common Syrian tradition before the start of the civil war, more and more Syrian girls are marrying at a younger age because of the insecurity of the war, because many families feel the girls in their family may be sexually harassed if they are not under the care of a husband, and because of prospect of alleviating the financial burden of one more mouth to feed.
Addario has spent the last four years documenting the plight of Syrian refugees and internally displaced in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq for The New York Times.
Uganda
Ayak, from Malakal, in South Sudan, poses for a portrait in a safe house in Uganda, December 8, 2015.
Ayak grew up in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, and returned back to South Sudan with her family after independence. Shortly after returning, fighting resumed, and Ayak and her family fled from Malakal to bentiu. her mother was killed, her father died of a suspected heart attack along the way; Ayak was raped en route to bentiu. She eventually made it to the UNMISS camp in bentiu, where she lived for over one year, She was raped by armed men while living within the UNMISS camp. Ayak is now 9 months pregnant from the rape, and expecting her child any day.
As the world takes more notice of rape being used as a weapon of war, Congo's dark history of sexual violence in conflict has much to teach the world on how to prevent rape, and how it can help survivors heal physically, emotionally, and socially.
South Sudan
Nyanen Yak lies ill with severe pneumonia in a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders at the base of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, where over 20,000 internally displaced people are currently seeking shelter, in Bentiu, South Sudan, May 4, 2014.
Lynsey Addario
American photographer Lynsey Addario regularly works for The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine. In 2000, Addario first traveled to Afghanistan to document life and oppression of women living under the Taliban, and made three separate trips to the country under Taliban rule before September 11, 2001.
In the past 15 years, Addario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crises of her generation, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, South Sudan, and Congo. She was part of The York Times team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for work, "Talibanistan," published in the New York Times Magazine.
In 2015, American Photo Magazine named Addario one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years. She recently released a New York Times Best selling memoir, "It's What I Do," which chronicles her personal and professional life as a photojournalist coming of age in the post-9/11 world.
A pregnant Addario photographing in Gaza.
Lesbos, Greece
Paula Bronstein received an Honorable Mention for her portfolio.
Refugees arriving to the island of Lesbos fall out of a boat as it capsizes landing in rough seas coming from Turkey on October 31, 2015 in Greece.
More than a million people reached Europe in 2015 in the continent's largest refugee influx since the end of World War II. Nearly all of those entering Greece on a boat from Turkey are from the war zones of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Migrant crisis
Doctor Essam Daod from Haifa, Israel (center) performs CPR trying to save the life of a refugee who was rescued from the open waters of the Aegean seaon Lesbos, Greece on October 30, 2015 .
The man died despite the efforts of the lifeguards and medical personnel to revive him.
Nepal earthquake
Relatives mourn the death of Kiran Prajapati,40, who was found in the ruins of a Kathmandu building after it collapsed from the devastating earthquake in Bhaktapur, Nepal, May 8, 2015.
It took 13 days to find his body prolonging the suffering for the family. He was cremated in Bhaktapur where he was from.
Hong Kong protests
Residents of Kowloon who are pro-Beijing fight with a student democracy protester in the Mongkok neighborhood as tensions rise on October 3, 2014 in Hong Kong.
For weeks thousands of pro-democracy supporters continued to occupy the streets surrounding Hong Kong's Financial district, calling for open elections and the resignation of Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.
Aghan widows
Widow Naiz Bibi claims she is 68 but really can't remember clearly. She has had a very hard life, blinded in one eye she fled up north to the IDP camps of Kabul from the war torn province of Helmand.
Naiz barely survived after she lost seven members of her family during a NATO air strike including her husband, daughter and two sons. The eight that survived are now helping to take care of her since she is in bad health, living in the squalid Nasaji Bagrami camp outside of Kabul for thousands of war refugees.
More than three decades of uninterrupted war in Afghanistan has mass produced widows who live in extreme poverty, often seen begging in Kabul's traffic choked streets. The overall number of widows is not known, but it is thought to range from several hundred thousand to two million.
Paula Bronstein
American photojournalist Paula Bronstein, based in Bangkok, has focused much of her recent work in Asia and Afghanistan.
Her images have been nominated and recognized by photography contests including The Pulitzer, Pictures of The Year International and The National Press Photographer's Association.
Bronstein's work has been featured in recent exhibitions, including: "Afghanistan's Health Crisis," Lido, Italy (October 2015) and the Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles (December 13, 2014 - May 3, 2015); "Women in War" at the 2014 Korea Photo Biennale; and "Women Between Peace and War -Afghanistan," exhibited in New York, Miami, and several other U.S. cities.
Anja Niedringhaus
Anja Niedringhaus, 48, an internationally acclaimed German photographer, was killed and an AP reporter was wounded on April 4, 2014 when an Afghan policeman opened fire while they were sitting in their car in eastern Afghanistan.
Niedringhaus worked in various conflict zones around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, Israel and Kuwait, for more than 20 years. She received the Courage in Journalism Award, renamed in her honor after her death, from the International Women's Media Foundation in 2005. That same year she was the only woman out of team of 11 AP photographers awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for coverage of the Iraq War. She began working as a photographer at age 17 and her career spanned 24 years.
Afghanistan's highest court ruled that the police officer convicted of murdering Niedringhaus and severely wounding AP correspondent Kathy Gannon should serve 20 years in prison. The final sentence was reduced from the death penalty.
Pulitzer
This photograph is one in a portfolio of twenty taken by eleven different Associated Press photographers throughout 2004 in Iraq. The Associated Press won a Pulitzer prize in breaking news photography for the series of pictures of bloody combat in Iraq. The award was the AP's 48th Pulitzer.
A U.S. Marine of the 1st Division carries a mascot for good luck in his backpack as his unit pushed further into the western part of Fallujah, Iraq, Nov. 14, 2004.
Afghanistan
A U.S. Marine on his way to pick up food supplies after they were dropped off by small parachutes from a plane outside Forward Operating Base Edi in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, June 9, 2011. The smoke in the background comes from burning parachutes the Marines destroy after they reached the ground.
Pakistan
A young girl reaches out to greet a Pakistani policeman securing the road outside Kainat Riaz's home in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan, November 15, 2012.
Security stepped up after Kainat was wounded by the same Taliban gunman who shot Malala Yousufzai and 13-year-old Shazia Ramazan on October 8 on their way home from school. Malala was shot for her outspoken insistence on girls' education. Shazia and Kainat were to return to school for the first time since the shooting.
Kuwait
Hundreds of U.S. Marines gather at Camp Commando in the Kuwait desert during a Christmas eve visit by Santa Claus.
Kabul
Afghan lawmaker Toorpekai Patman from Kabul poses next to guards of honor in the parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 26, 2014.
In the election in 2010, 69 women won seats in Afghanistan's 249-seat parliament.
Injured Marine
Injured U.S. Marine Cpl. Burness Britt reacts after being lifted onto a medevac helicopter from the U.S. Army's Task Force Lift "Dust Off," Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, June 4, 2011.
Iraq
Iraqi women line up for a security check by British soldiers on the outskirts of Basra, as they try to flee from this southern Iraqi town, March 30, 2003.
Kabul
Afghan army soldiers get house-to-house search instructions at a training facility in the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, November 26, 2013.
Kabul
Afghan women in Burqa's shopping at a market in Kabul, Afghanistan can be seen through the eye slit of a burqa, April 11, 2013.
Kabul
Afghan female prisoner in their cell at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 28, 2013.
The Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award is presented by the International Women's Media Foundation