On Thursday 30 January, the opening ceremony and presentation of awards to the winners of the latest edition of the Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Prize, organised year after year by Médicos del Mundo, took place. The gala, presented by El País journalist Beatriz Lecumberri, was attended by photojournalists, companies, friends of the Salesian Missions Museum, relatives of the aid workers to whom the award pays tribute: Flors Sirera, Manuel Madrazo, Mercedes Navarro and Luis Valtueña, representatives of cooperation and humanitarian action institutions, members of the jury, among other attendees and, of course, friends, employees and volunteers of Médicos del Mundo.
The ceremony was followed by the prize-giving to Mahmoud Issa, Palestinian photojournalist for his work Siege and Hunger, who received the award through his friend and fellow Palestinian journalist, Ahmed A E Alsharateha, who collected it on his behalf. Mahmoud sent a video with a hopeful message about the future of Gaza, “I hope that with my photos I have been able to convey the suffering of my people”.
The finalists in this year’s competition also received recognition: Colombian Santiago Mesa for The invisible wound, a work that deals with the silent suicides of young women who resort to this practice to escape violence, hunger or the siege of armed groups in the Colombian Chocó; Portuguese Mário Cruz for his work Roof, a denunciatory coverage of the real estate crisis in Lisbon, a destination considered the number one tourist destination in the European Union that nevertheless has no housing for those who, even if they work, cannot afford to pay rent. Finally, Daniel Ochoa de Olza, a Basque who lives in Mexico, sent a video because he was unable to attend the event due to the fact that he was covering the border crossing between Mexico and the United States. The project called The Gap highlights the “ridiculous wall that they want to mark three thousand kilometres of border between Mexico and the United States like a scar”, as Ochoa del Olza laments, leaning against the monumental border wall.
If you don’t want to miss the details, visit the image gallery with the key moments of the gala.
