UNICEF Photo of the Year 2004

Each year, UNICEF Germany grants the “UNICEF Photo of the Year Award” to photos and photo series that best depict the personality and living conditions of children worldwide in an outstanding manner. Here are the winners 2004.

Marcus Blaesdale

Darfur in flame

“The UNICEF photo of the Year 2004 is giving a “face” to the biggest refugee tragedy worldwide: It is the face of a child”, Germany’s First Lady and UNICEF patroness Eva Luise Köhler said at the presentation in Berlin.

Exhausted, desperate: A child waits with her mother in Disa, in the Northern Sudanese province of Darfour.

Displaced by recent conflicts her village has been burned down. It is estimated that there are 800.000 displaced people in Darfour who are trapped on the East, West and South by government troops and in the North by the desert wasteland, which will certainly claim the lives of weaker family members and of their livestock. UN consider the situation in Da r fur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. The Khartoum Government is responsible for systematic killings in the region. More than 200 ,000 people escaped across the bo r der to Chad.

The British photographer Marcus Bleasdale travelled to the Darfour-area in June 2004.

2nd Prize for Abir Abdullah, "Collapse of a rotten building in Bangladesh"

3rd Prize for Alfredo D’ amato, "Corinna’s home on a garbage dump in Bucharest"

Honorable Mentions