MAURICIO LIMA, BRAZIL
EUROPE: JUST WANTING TO ARRIVE!
They started their journey in order to flee the war in the region of Aleppo, Syria: two brothers with their families, 13 all in all, including six children and a pregnant woman in her seventh month. Their destination: Sweden.
© Mauricio Lima (New York Times)
It took them 29 days alone to get there from Serbia. Their journey included hours and hours of walking, illegal border crossings, five nights next to a train station in Budapest, endless bus and train drives. 2.30am: a stopover at a deserted train station in Kiel. The picture of little Nabib, wrapped in a blanket, sleeping, shows the loneliness of such a journey. Other images by Brazilian photographer Mauricio Lima capture the exhaustion, the hardships and the helplessness. But they also show the lightheartedness, curiosity, cheerfulness and hope of the children. And they particularly show the importance of solidarity and warmth.
Mauricio Lima, born in 1975 in São Paulo, has worked as a photographer in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine and other countries. Together with the two refugee families, he has been in Horgos, Roszke (Hungary), in Budapest, Salzburg, Munich, Kiel, Padborg, in a number of places in Sweden and, for the time being, their final destination: Kristinehamn and Backhammar.
There, Lima was able to capture a happy ending: their asylum requests being accepted, the quick enrollment of the children at the local school – all driven by their parents’ objective to build a new life for themselves and their children. His earlier work, carried out with the same effort and intensity and featured, for example, in the New York Times, won him a Pulitzer Prize, two World Press Photo Awards as well as other prestigious awards from Latin America to China.
Curriculum Vitae: Mauricio Lima (New York Times)
© Mauricio Lima (New York Times)