Ukraine conflict dominates top French war reporting awards

France’s prestigious Bayeux War Correspondents’ Awards Saturday largely honoured reporting on the Ukraine conflict, with Associated Press and Burkina Faso newspaper Sidwaya among the recipients.

Instituted in 1994, the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Awards have honoured exceptional reporting on war and unrest.

The choice of Bayeux is significant as it was the first French town to be liberated by the Allied forces during World War II.

With the exception of the Burkina Faso award, all the prize winners were awarded for their coverage of the war in Ukraine.

The photo prize went to Ukrainian photographer Evgeniy Maloletka for his work with video journalist Mstyslav Chernov on the fall of Mariupol for AP.

The written press prize went to Mariam Ouedraogo of Sidwaya for her reporting in Burkina Faso, which has suffered two coups this year.

In television, Theo Maneval and Pierre Dehoorne won the first Amnesty International prize for “Viktor and the kiss of war” in Ukraine for France 5, with the large format prize going to Philip Cox of the Guardian for “The Spiderman of Sudan”.

For radio, the international jury awarded the prize to Maurine Mercier, who recorded the testimony of a mother and her daughter on “two weeks of rape and terror in Bucha”, also in Ukraine, for France Info – RTS.