Best photographic news reporting from abroad in any medium.
AWARD DATE: 2019
AWARD NAME: The Olivier Rebbot Award 2019
AWARD RECIPIENT: Moises Saman
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: National Geographic
AWARD HONORED WORK: “El Salvador: A Country in Crisis”
Onlookers gather at the scene of a homicide in downtown San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital. Violence has driven hundreds of Salvadorans to leave each day for the United States, where they make up the fourth largest Latino community, after Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. Photo: Moises Saman
Members of the MS-13 gang crowd into their cramped cell inside Chalatenango prison, in northern El Salvador. Authorities house rival gangs in separate prisons to avoid deadly riots, but extreme crowding has stretched the prison system beyond its limits. Photo: Moises Saman
An alleged thief lies dead in a bus after a passenger, in self-defense, shot him and another assailant (who lived) during an attempted robbery in downtown San Salvador. The shooter fled the scene. Photo: Moises Saman
Others at Gotera who have renounced their gang ties pray together. Prison-based evangelical churches in El Salvador are growing. Photo: Moises Saman
The diaries of forensic criminologist Israel Ticas, with photos here showing two mass gravesites, document his relentless efforts to find the hidden victims of gang violence. Ticas has exhumed hundreds of bodies from clandestine graves across the country. Beheadings, dismemberments, and signs of torture are commonplace. Photo: Moises Saman
Former gang members hang from their hammocks inside the San Francisco Gotera prison in Morazán department. Photo: Moises Saman
An MS-13 gang member attends a literacy class in Chalatenango prison. In exchange for good behavior, inmates can take part in a state-run rehabilitation program called Yo Cambio (I Change) that aims to prepare them for life after prison. Photo: Moises Saman
Salvadoran police check for gang tattoos on the arm of a suspect found to have a gun hidden in his car. El Salvador’s intensified anti-gang measures allow authorities to stop and frisk anyone in the street. Gangs have adapted by discouraging members from getting tattoos that give away any affiliation. Photo: Moises Saman
Wilfredo Gómez, a former 18th Street gang member turned preacher, speaks at a memorial service in San Salvador’s Dina neighborhood. The service honored a parishioner and ex-gang member killed by rivals after his release from prison. "You walk with God or the devil, but you can’t serve both," another former gang member said. Photo: Moises Saman
A net protects María Agustina Márquez from mosquitoes in the home she shares with her husband and granddaughter near Intipucá. Many there rely on remittances from those in the U.S. Both her sons are in the U.S. but barely manage to send money home. Photo: Moises Saman
Salvadoran fisherman Arnovis Guidos Portillo watches his daughter and son in their home in Usulután department. After reaching the U.S. together in May 2018, father and daughter were detained by immigration authorities and kept in different facilities for more than a month before being deported separately to El Salvador, where they reunited. Photo: Moises Saman
Citation for Excellence: Natacha Pisarenko
Affiliation: The Associated Press
Honored Work: “Bolivia, Political Unrest”