Silent Cries: The Forgotten Children of Congo

• Prize
  Gold in Press/War / Conflict
• Photographer
  Gerardo Fortino, Italy
• Studio
  Raw Facts

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 1 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition due to ongoing conflicts. Forty percent of armed group members are children, often recruited at the age of 8, forced to fight and die. In refugee camps, hunger and disease claim lives daily, worsened by epidemics like monkeypox. Every shot tells the story of those who are no longer here: the child who died because the hospital sold therapeutic food, the boy with monkeypox who succumbed to other illnesses, the young Wazalendo killed fighting the M23. Congo bleeds, and the world remains silent.