Presentation
Centro internacional de personas desplazadas de Chefferie, que acoge a unas 4.000 personas, en la ciudad de Kitchanga, Kivu Norte, República Democrática del Congo.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has been in turmoil for six years following the official end of the civil war that rocked the country between 1998 and 2002. With the various rebel groups still active in the eastern provinces, the local population continues to suffer unimaginable hardship, with some 850,000 people displaced in North Kivu province alone.
Biography
Andrew McConnell was born in Ireland and began his career as a press photographer working for a daily newspaper in Belfast during the closing stages of the conflict in Northern Ireland and the transition to peace.
Today his works focus on themes of displacement, post-conflict issues, and the environment. He has worked in-depth on issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis, e-waste in Ghana, the surfers of the Gaza Strip, and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for which he won the Luis Valutena Humanitarian Photography Award.
In 2009, he completed a series on the forgotten Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, for which he was awarded 1st place in the portrait story category of the World Press Photo awards. A follow-up project on the issue of urban refugees was carried out in 8 cities worldwide and resulted in exhibitions in London and New York.
Among numerous honors, McConnell has won two 1st place prizes at the World Press Photo Awards, 4 National Press Photographers Association awards, including the prestigious Best of Show, 2 Sony World Photography Awards, 1st place at the Pictures of the Year International, and 1st place in the Istanbul Photo Awards.
He is represented by one of the world's leading photographic agencies: Panos Pictures.
