Nariman El-Mofty
Best photographic news reporting from abroad published in any medium
AWARD DATE: 2018
AWARD NAME: The Olivier Rebbot Award 2018
AWARD RECIPIENT: Nariman El-Mofty
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: The Associated Press, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
AWARD HONORED WORK: “Yemen: On The Edge”
AWARD SPONSOR: The Coca-Cola Company
The jury saw several strong portfolios from Yemen—a country that, until last year, had been severely neglected by the mainstream media. Nariman El-Mofty’s work stood out. We were moved by her clear commitment to the subject, but also by her thoughtful and surprising use of light, color and framing to capture a conflict zone that has almost always been depicted through a darker lens. The variety of scenes that El-Mofty documented—from malnourished children to crumbling infrastructure to snippets of daily life—convey the complexity of a country and a conflict that the world still struggles to understand.
Violence, famine and disease have ravished Yemen, the country of some 28 million, which was already the Arab world’s poorest before the conflict began. The conflict pits a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition supporting the internationally recognized government, which has nominally relocated to Aden but largely lives in exile, against rebels known as Houthis. Across southern Yemen stretches a landscape of desperation, in towns, villages and camps for the displaced, families are left unable to afford food amid the civil war between Houthi rebels and a government backed by a destructive Saudi-led air campaign. This Feb. 15, 2018, photo shows sand drifting over an empty highway from Abyan to Aden in Yemen. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
Monir al-Sharqi walks to his bed after nurses changed the dressings on his burns, at the Marib General Hospital in Yemen on July 25, 2018. Al-Sharqi, a lab technician, disappeared for a year, until he was dumped in a stream, half-naked, emaciated and bearing horrific marks of torture. He had burns from acid over his head, back and shoulders, so severe that his jacket stuck to his melted skin. Some members of his family believe he was detained and tortured by Yemen's Houthi rebels because of his past political activism. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
In this July 28, 2018 photo, 20 year-old Sakr Abd Mohammed, who was injured after a car accident rests in the ICU, at the General Hospital in Marib, Yemen. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
In this Feb. 13, 2018 photo, 25 year-old mother Azizah Rageh, who weighs 38 kilograms (84 pounds), severely undernourished and nearly into the second trimester of her pregnancy, reveals her collarbones to be photographed, at the Aden Hospital, in Yemen. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
A doctor shows on her mobile phone a photo of Fadl, an 8-month-old Yemeni boy taken in his last days before he starved to death, in this Feb. 10, 2018 photo at a hospital in Mocha, Yemen. Fadl’s mother gave birth to him under a tree as she fled fighting, and ever since she struggled to get him enough food. Eight months later, at the time of his death, the baby boy weighed 2.9 kilograms (6 pounds), a third of the normal weight for his age. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
In this Feb. 9, 2018 photo, Hagar Yahia holds her daughter Awsaf, a thin 5-year-old who is getting no more than 800 calories a day from bread and tea, half the normal amount for a girl her age, in Abyan, Yemen. Yahia, a mother of eight breaks down in tears talking about her family’s deprivation. Late last year, as fighting closed in on Hayis, they fled more than 200 miles, eventually ending up in the village of Red Star on the Arabian Sea coast in the south. Ever since, they’ve struggled to find enough food. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
Awsaf, a 5-year-old Yemeni girl, eats bread and drinks tea _ which on many days is the only food she has _ crouching next to her mother in their hut in Abyan, Yemen, in this Feb. 15, 2018 photo. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
In this Feb. 9, 2018 photo, displaced girls pose for a photograph inside a school turned into a camp for displaced persons in Khanfar, Abyan, Yemen. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
In this Feb. 12, 2018 photo, Saudi-led coalition backed forces patrol Mocha, Yemen. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
This Feb. 11, 2018 photo shows damages due to the war at the Ibn Kholdoon Hospital, in Lahj, Yemen. Photo: Nariman El-Mofty
Citation for Excellence recipient: Spencer Platt
Affiliation: Getty Images
Honored Work: “Looking for Home”