From a dusty town to a flowing river: how Reuters won a Pulitzer

From a dusty town to a flowing river: how Reuters won a Pulitzer

Advertisement

From the dusty town in Honduras where thousands are fleeing violence to the currents of the Rio Grande, Reuters photographers walked, waded and flew to capture images of thousands of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States.

The effort to document the human hardship and its political consequences was honored with a 2019 Pulitzer Prize on Monday, winning the breaking news photography award for "a vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America," the Pulitzer board said.

. Frontera Hidalgo, Mexico. Reuters
A migrant caravan proceeds towards Tapachula from Ciudad Hidalgo, after crossing the Guatemala border into Mexico.

The entry included 20 pictures from 11 photographers, part of a larger team of people from 14 countries that were assigned to cover the story, some of them joining migrants for daylong journeys on foot. Colleagues were flown in from around the world to reinforce the U.S.- and Latin American-based team of photographers, drivers and fixers, many of them spending weeks or months on the road.

"It was important to us to have photographers from different backgrounds," said Claudia Daut, Reuters Latin America picture editor based in Mexico City. "People from different countries look at the same thing differently because of their cultural backgrounds."

. Tijuana, MEXICO. Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis
A migrant from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, holds a young girl as others jump over the border wall to enter the United States illegally.

Daut and Corinne Perkins, Reuters North America pictures editor based in New York City, had already identified immigration as the top news priority in the region, marshalling staff and resources to cover it even before U.S. President Donald Trump turned his attention to the caravans.

Nine of the 20 images came from Reuters photographer Adrees Latif, a 2008 Pulitzer winner who spent five months on the border.

. Granjeno, United States. Reuters/Adrees Latif
A man proceeds with caution as he pulls a raft with families seeking asylum from Central America as they illegally cross the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico as seen from Granjeno, Texas.

One of Latif's pictures, taken in waist-deep water on the Rio Grande river marking the U.S.-Mexican border, shows an approaching smuggler whose raft is laden with asylum-seekers. He had spent hours on the northern bank of the river, dressed in camouflage, waiting for that moment.

Later that same month, October 2018, Latif took another picture from the Rio Suchiate, marking Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, depicting a Honduran man in chest-high water carrying a 5-year-old child in one arm.

Both were taken with a 35 mm lens, meaning Latif had to get close.

"I wanted to show what the migrants are willing to risk to achieve a better life for themselves and their children," Latif said. "I wanted to get in the water to make the viewer feel what they were going through."

. Tornillo, United States. Reuters/Mike Blake
Migrant children are led by staff in single file between tents at a detention facility next to the Mexican border in Tornillo, Texas.

In a series of photos from June 2018, Reuters photographer Mike Blake captured images of a migrant detention facility in Tornillo, Texas. Taking a bumpy ride in a small plane flying 1,000 feet (300 meters) overhead, Blake snapped pictures of children being marched in single file, like prisoners.

The pictures were used on the front pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, generating public anger around the world. Within hours, Trump signed an executive order reversing his administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the border.

. Tijuana, MEXICO. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon
Maria Meza, a 40-year-old migrant woman from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, runs away from tear gas with her five-year-old twin daughters Saira Mejia Meza (L) and Cheili Mejia Meza (R) in front of the border wall between the U.S and Mexico, in Tijuana.

Another picture also grabbed the public's attention: Kim Kyung-Hoon's image of a mother grabbing her twin daughters by the arm, one in diapers and wearing rubber sandals, the other barefoot, as a teargas cannister launched by U.S. authorities into Mexico at the San Diego-Tijuana border emitted its fumes. Kim is a South Korean national based in Tokyo who was on special assignment to cover the migrant caravan in Mexico.

. Hidalgo, Mexico. Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino
A Honduran migrant protects his child after fellow migrants stormed a border checkpoint at the Guatemala - Mexico border, in Ciudad Hidalgo.

On the Mexican side of the Mexican-Guatemalan border, Ueslei Marcelino of Brazil snapped a picture of a gap-toothed Honduran man clutching his baby before a phalanx of shielded Mexican riot police.

. San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
A rooster walks past the dead body of an Barrio-18 gang member in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

The migrant caravans departed from San Pedro Sula, a city in Honduras with one of the highest murder rates in the world. It was there that Goran Tomasevic, a Serbian based in Istanbul, captured a shot of a rooster walking past the slain body of a gang member, a demonstration of the violence that has caused so many migrants to flee.

1 / 12

Slideshow

A migrant girl holds her belongings while making her way to Mapastepec from Huixtla, Mexico at sunrise.
. Huixtla, Mexico. Reuters/Adrees Latif

A migrant girl holds her belongings while making her way to Mapastepec from Huixtla, Mexico at sunrise.

A migrant boy cries due to excess heat and humidity as migrants seek asylum at the Guatemala Mexico border checkpoint in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico.
. Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico. Reuters/Edgard Garrido

A migrant boy cries due to excess heat and humidity as migrants seek asylum at the Guatemala Mexico border checkpoint in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico.

A United States Marine fortifies concertina wire along the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing as seen from Tijuana, Mexico.
. Tijuana, Mexico. Reuters/Adrees Latif

A United States Marine fortifies concertina wire along the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing as seen from Tijuana, Mexico.

Migrants return to Mexico after being hit by tear gas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials after attempting to illegally cross the border wall into the United States in Tijuana, Mexico.
. Tijuana, Mexico. Reuters/Adrees Latif

Migrants return to Mexico after being hit by tear gas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials after attempting to illegally cross the border wall into the United States in Tijuana, Mexico.

Andrea Nicole Arita, 10, from Honduras crawls through a hole under a border wall to illegally cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico.
. Tijuana, MEXICO. Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis

Andrea Nicole Arita, 10, from Honduras crawls through a hole under a border wall to illegally cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico.

Mateo, a two-year-old migrant boy from Honduras, is led through dense brush by his mother Juana Maria after a group of two dozen families members illegally crossed the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico, in Fronton, Texas.
. Fronton, United States. Reuters/Adrees Latif

Mateo, a two-year-old migrant boy from Honduras, is led through dense brush by his mother Juana Maria after a group of two dozen families members illegally crossed the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico, in Fronton, Texas.

U.S. Border Patrol agent Marcelino Medina looks for others as he apprehends a migrant woman and man for illegally crossing into the U.S. border from Mexico near McAllen, Texas.
. Mcallen, United States. Reuters/Adrees Latif

U.S. Border Patrol agent Marcelino Medina looks for others as he apprehends a migrant woman and man for illegally crossing into the U.S. border from Mexico near McAllen, Texas.

A nine year old migrant girl from Guatemala sits in the back of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle after she was apprehended for illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in Sunland Park, New Mexico.
. Sunland Park, United States. Reuters/Adrees Latif

A nine year old migrant girl from Guatemala sits in the back of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle after she was apprehended for illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

The body of Misael Paiz, 25, a migrant from Guatemala, lies covered in a white cloth after it was located by U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Sonoran Desert in Pima County, Arizona.
. Sasabe, United States. Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

The body of Misael Paiz, 25, a migrant from Guatemala, lies covered in a white cloth after it was located by U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Sonoran Desert in Pima County, Arizona.

Friends and family carry a coffin with the remains of Jakelin Caal, a 7-year-old girl  Guatemalan girl who died after she and her father were detained by U.S. border agents, during her funeral in her home village of San Antonio Secortez, Guatemala.
. Raxruha, GUATEMALA. Reuters/Carlos Barria

Friends and family carry a coffin with the remains of Jakelin Caal, a 7-year-old girl Guatemalan girl who died after she and her father were detained by U.S. border agents, during her funeral in her home village of San Antonio Secortez, Guatemala.

A child from Honduras, draped in a covering with an image of the American flag, walks ahead of his mother towards a plane deporting migrants back to Honduras from Mexico, at the Tapachula International Airport in Tapachula, Mexico.
. Tapachula, Mexico. Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

A child from Honduras, draped in a covering with an image of the American flag, walks ahead of his mother towards a plane deporting migrants back to Honduras from Mexico, at the Tapachula International Airport in Tapachula, Mexico.

Anita Areli Ramirez Mejia, an asylum seeker from Honduras separated from her six year-old son Jenri near the Mexico-U.S. border, is reunited with him in Harlingen, Texas.
. Harlingen, United States. Reuters/Loren Elliott

Anita Areli Ramirez Mejia, an asylum seeker from Honduras separated from her six year-old son Jenri near the Mexico-U.S. border, is reunited with him in Harlingen, Texas.