Anadolu Agency, March 2, 2021
Onur Coban received an award in the National/International News Picture Story category with his photo titled “A short-lived exodus from Turkey to Europe,” which depicts asylum seekers who want to go to Europe waiting at the Greek border in Turkey’s northwestern province of Edirne.
Noting that winning an award in the competition is important for both Anadolu Agency and himself, Coban said: “POY is an important and prestigious competition involving the world’s leading photojournalists and media outlets.”
“The photos I took had another significance in terms of showing the violence inflicted by Greek border security forces on immigrants who wanted to go to Europe,” he said.
“I am happy that I was able to demonstrate the violence of Greece against immigrants and that I was deemed worthy of an award in this competition.”
Another Anadolu Agency photojournalist, Gokhan Balci, won third prize for his photo series titled “European Dream.”
Balci said he witnessed for around a month the struggle of irregular migrants who wanted to flee from the civil war in their country and go to Europe with the hope of a better life.
“Despite the harsh intervention of the Greek security forces, we tried to announce to the world the difficulties of thousands of stateless people who wanted to cross the border,” he said.
Anadolu Agency’s Director-General Senol Kazanci also congratulated the award-winning photojournalists.
This year, Anadolu Agency’s team received the finalist award in the category of Local Team Picture Story of the Year with the photo series “An Open Door to Europe.”
Photojournalists Sebnem Coskun, Elif Ozturk, Arif Hudaverdi Yaman, Gokhan Balci and Onur Coban’s 20-image photo series depicts a group of asylum seekers in Turkey’s northwestern border province of Edirne hoping to go to Europe.
Also, Sebnem Coskun received the second-place award in the Science and Natural History Singles category for her image of a diver surrounded by COVID-19 waste in the Mediterranean Sea.
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