The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2023 depicts a carefree moment below the black clouds of war, in a meadow in northwestern Ukraine.
The winning photo: Light breaking through the darkness
Accompanied by friends, five-year-old Alina practices cycling. The previous night, a Russian drone set an oil depot on fire. This year’s winning photo, by Polish photographer Patryk Jaracz, symbolizes the light of children’s resilience and pleasures breaking through the darkness of global wars, conflicts and disasters.
The Polish photographer and documentary maker Patryk Jaracz has been documenting events in Ukraine on the ground since the war started. Only an oil depot in this instance, not a home, not a hospital, not a school. Since February 2022, the war in the wide territory of Ukraine has never been so all-pervasive as to totally extinguish the light of Ukrainian children every day and in every place. The photographer shows that in this picture. Yet, at the same time, his reporting takes up the theme of the injuries to Ukrainian children’s minds and bodies.
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