Second Prize Spot News Category, Stories
Jérôme Sessini, France, Magnum Photos for De Standaard
19-21 February, Kiev, Ukraine
Caption: A protester calls for medical aid for a comrade shot dead.
Story caption: After several months of violence, anti-government protesters remained mobilized by holding barricades in Kiev’s Independence Square, known simply as the Maidan. On Saturday, 20 February, unidentified snipers opened fire on unarmed protesters as they were advancing on Instituska Street. According to an official source, 70 protesters were shot dead. Ukrainian riot police claimed that several police officers were wounded or shot dead by snipers as well. An unofficial source said that snipers opened fire on the police and protesters at the same time in order to provoke both camps. 20 February was the bloodiest day of the Maidan protests, and two days after, President Viktor Yanukovych left the country.
www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2015
Second Prize General News Category, Single
Massimo Sestini, Italy
7 June, off the coast of Libya
Shipwrecked people are rescued aboard a boat 20 miles north of Libya by a frigate of the Italian navy. After hundreds of men, women and children had drowned in 2013 off the coast of Sicily and Malta, the Italian government put its navy to work under a campaign called “Mare Nostrum” rescuing refugees at sea. Only in 2014, 170,081 people were rescued and taken to Italy.
www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2015
First Prize Spot News Category, Singles
Bulent Kilic, Turkey, Agence France-Presse
March 12, 2014, Istanbul
Caption: A young girl is pictured after she was wounded during clashes between riot-police and protestors after the funeral of Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old boy who died from injuries suffered during last year's anti-government protests. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at protestors in the capital Ankara, while in Istanbul, crowds shouting anti-government slogans lit a huge fire as they made their way to a cemetery for the burial of Berkin Elvan.
www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2015
Second Prize Spot News Category, StoriesJérôme Sessini, France, Magnum Photos for De Standaard
19-21 February, Kiev, Ukraine
Caption: A protester calls for medical aid for a comrade shot dead.
Story caption: After several months of violence, anti-government protesters remained mobilized by holding barricades in Kiev’s Independence Square, known simply as the Maidan. On Saturday, 20 February, unidentified snipers opened fire on unarmed protesters as they were advancing on Instituska Street. According to an official source, 70 protesters were shot dead. Ukrainian riot police claimed that several police officers were wounded or shot dead by snipers as well. An unofficial source said that snipers opened fire on the police and protesters at the same time in order to provoke both camps. 20 February was the bloodiest day of the Maidan protests, and two days after, President Viktor Yanukovych left the country.
www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2015
Third Prize Contemporary Issues Category, Stories
Tomas van Houtryve, Belgium, VII for Harper’s Magazine
El Dorado County, California, United States
Caption: Students in a schoolyard.
Story: Several thousand people have been killed by covert U.S. drone strikes since 2004. The photographer bought his own drone, mounted a camera and traveled across the US looking for similar situations as mentioned in strike reports from Pakistan and Yemen, including weddings, funerals, and groups of people praying or exercising. He also flew his camera over settings in which drones are used to less lethal effect, such as prisons, oil fields and the U.S.-Mexico border.
www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2015
Second Prize Nature Category, Singles
Ami Vitale, USA, National Geographic
Lewa Downs, Northern Kenya
Caption: A group of young Samburu warriors encounter a rhino for the first time in their lives. Most people in Kenya never get the opportunity to see the wildlife that exists literally in their own backyard.
Story: organized by sophisticated, heavily armed criminal networks and fueled by heavy demand from newly minted millionaires in emerging markets, poaching is devastating the great animals of the African plains. Much needed attention has been focused on the plight of wildlife and the conflict between poachers and increasingly militarized wildlife rangers, but very little has been said about the indigenous communities on the frontlines of the poaching wars and the work that is being done to strengthen them. These communities hold the key to saving Africa’s great animals.