The longing for tulips

• Prize
  Silver in Press/War / Conflict
• Photographer
  Philipp Schmieja , Germany
• Date of Photograph
  March 2026

Gang violence has forced over 1.4 million people from their homes in Haiti´s Port-au-Prince. Gang war, mass kidnappings, and the fail of state have transformed the capital into “the city of camps”. The internally displaced people flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs to makeshift sites. They live alongside hazards like an unsanitary water tank in the courtyard. Young women suffered monstrous crimes, got gang-raped by bandits and raise the rapists' babies. Men were hit by flying stray bullets through the tents due to gang gunfire. Hope is as hard to find as tulips in the camps.