The port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov was the first city struck when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on 24 February 2022. Civilians were hit hard.

By early March, Russian forces had completely surrounded the city, restricting water, power and food supplies. Some 200,000 citizens were trapped in Mariupol, as attempts to evacuate them failed. Russian bombardment devastated the city, and included civilian targets such as a maternity hospital and a theatre where people were sheltering. Evgeniy Maloletka, who is Ukrainian, was one of the very few photographers documenting events in Mariupol at that time. 

On 21 April, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian forces had taken Mariupol, but the city council said that 1,000 civilians alongside thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were holding out in the giant Azovstal steelworks. By 20 May, the soldiers defending the steelworks had surrendered, and the UN and Red Cross were able to evacuate the civilians. 

At the time of writing in April 2023, Mariupol remained under Russian occupation. Russia has begun rebuilding the city and scrubbing it of its Ukrainian identity by renaming streets and changing school curriculums. 

Evgeniy Maloletka
Ukraine

Since 2014, Maloletka has been covering the war in Ukraine. He has also covered the Euromaidan Revolution, the protests in Belarus, the Nagorno-Karabakh war and the covid-19 pandemic in Ukraine.

Maloletka’s work during the siege of Mariupol in 2022 has been recognized with the Knight International Journalism Award, the Visa d’or News Award and the Prix Bayeux Calvados-Normandie. He has also received awards from Italy, Germany, Norway and the United States. 

This story captures the daily life of people living across Afghanistan in 2022.

In August 2021, the withdrawal of US and allied forces from Afghanistan marked the end of a 20-year long attempt at nation-building. Taliban forces, having sustained an insurgency across the country, returned to power shortly after the collapse of the Afghan state. Consequently, all international aid, which in 2019 accounted for an estimated 80% of the country’s expenditures, was halted, and 7 to 9 billion dollars of assets belonging to the Afghan state were frozen. Without these two sources of government income, the already fragile Afghan economy effectively collapsed.

Estimates for 2022 suggest that 97% of the population lives below the poverty line and 95% of people do not have enough to eat. Nine million people are at risk of famine and, according to the UN, over a million children are severely malnourished.

Mads Nissen photographed this story on assignment for Politiken. He said: “My hope with this work is more than anything to create not just awareness, but engagement to the millions of Afghans who are desperately in need of food and humanitarian aid right now.” 

Mads Nissen
Denmark

For Nissen, photography is all about empathy - creating understanding and intimacy while confronting contemporary social issues such as inequality, human rights violations, and our destructive relationship with nature. 

Nissen’s work has received more than 80 international awards and recognitions, including the Visa d’Or in 2022 and first prize as ‘The International Photographer of the Year’ at POY in 2023.

Nissen has published three photo books: The Fallen (People's Press), AMAZONAS (Gyldendal) and most recently in 2018 the award-winning We are Indestructible (GOST Books). 

Access to water is one of the most contentious local issues in Central Asia today. Four landlocked countries compete over the water supplies they share – a situation intensified by the climate crisis.



For decades, interdependence between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, upstream on the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan downstream, encouraged peaceful interaction over use of this resource – but drought, conflicting needs, and water mismanagement are disrupting this long-standing cooperation. Post-Soviet independence of the four countries, the subsequent growth of national identities, and the rise of privatized industries all contribute further to this imbalance. Recent intense droughts have aggravated the situation. 

The photographer documented the resilience of people living in this region, who have been dealing with issues of water management for many years. She said: “Water intertwines with their lives. People’s lives are also changing because the climate is changing, and they have to adapt to that, too. I wanted to capture this powerful spirit. One of the reasons I'm happy that this project was a winner is that it means I can share the story with a wider audience. Stories from Central Asia are not covered enough.” 

Anush Babajanyan
Armenia

Anush Babajanyan is a photographer whose work focuses on social narratives and personal stories. She is a member of VII Photo Agency and is a National Geographic Explorer.

Babajanyan has photographed in Nagorno-Karabakh for over six years, compiling the photography in her book A Troubled Home. Alongside working in the South Caucasus region, Babajanyan photographs in Central Asia, where she has been working on environmental stories. In 2019, she was the winner of the Canon Female Photojournalist Grant.