BAYEUX: A grim series of photographs titled “Kissing Death” by Iraqi photographer Ali Arkady on the bloody conflict in his country won the prestigious Bayeux-Calvados photo awards for war correspondents on Saturday.
The brutal photographs tracked Iraqi special forces in battles in Tikrit, Fallujah, and Mosul and included horrendous images of torture and violence.
They were published by the VII photo agency.
“They are the most sinister, upsetting pictures I have seen in my entire life,” veteran war correspondent Jeremy Bowen — the head of the jury and a journalist at BBC whose career spans three decades — told media agencies.
“The pictures were really, really strong, they were evil,” he said. “You could see evil… I could feel it in my stomach, the dark side of the world,” said Bowen.
For reportage, the French journalist Samuel Forey won a prize for tracking five days in the battle for Mosul — Iraq’s second city that was recaptured from Daesh extremists in July.
Forey’s accounts were published in France’s Le Figaro newspaper.
Radio journalist Gwendoline Debono from Europe 1 was honoured for her work on the entry of Iraqi troops into Mosul.
In television, 26-year-old Waad Al-Kateab — commissioned by Britain’s Channel 4 to make a film about life inside the Syrian city of Aleppo — won a prize for her work on the last hospital held by rebels.
Olivier Sarbil also won a TV prize for his film about the battle for Mosul, which was aired by Channel 4.
About 330 works had been entered for the prizes, of which some 50 were short-listed.
The prize money ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 euros.