Two teams of photographers working for The New York Times and Reuters received the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography on Monday for documenting the journeys of migrants and refugees.
The photographers followed hundreds of thousands of people traveling from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to Europe over the past year, shining a light on the harsh realities of the trip and the thin line between hope and desperation along the way.
Among the winners were Yannis Behrakis, Alkis Konstantinidis and Alexandros Avramidis, three Greeks working for Reuters who captured the fight for survival within their own country's borders. Their work took them from the shores of the Aegean islands to the port of Piraeus to the Greece-Macedonia border.
Behrakis, an award-winning photographer who serves as Reuters' chief photographer in Greece, wrote on his Facebook page that this is the first time Greece is taking home a Pulitzer. He said he’s proud of sharing the prize with two younger colleagues he considers to be his students.
“With many personal sacrifices we achieved what we wanted, which was to become the voice of these people that come to this dot of land in the Aegean, seeing it as their last hope,” Behrakis told Athens News Agency. “The people on the islands welcomed them, showed them love and us journalists, who were there a very long time, finally became [like] life vests for them. Their voice was heard through our photographs and our stories."
The photographers' Pulitzer-winning images for Reuters can be seen below. Please note that some of them may be disturbing to viewers.