In Perpignan, in the south of France, an Iranian photographer has just won the Visa d’Or Magazine during the Visa pour l’Image festival. Ebrahim Noroozi is rewarded for a long-term report carried out in Afghanistan for the Associated Press agency. His exhibition is titled The saddest country in the world, and the worst country for women.
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With our special correspondent in Perpignan, Edmond Sadaka
Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, Ebrahim Noroozi has spent more than a year covering Afghanistan. His report, produced entirely in color, shows us how the population tries to resist. The economy is in ruins. The Taliban impose ever more restrictions, so that women have become almost invisible in society.
Photographing a country adrift
As for child labour, which is already widespread, it continues to increase. Ebrahim Noroozi went to a brickyard where children from the age of four work. “ Working in a brickyard is already extremely arduous work for an adult. So, imagine for a little childsays the award-winning photographer. I was able to speak with many of these children, of course we got along. They let me photograph them. When I asked them: “What would you like to get one day?” they all answered me the same thing: food and a house. »
Ebrahim Noroozi’s report therefore relates the distress of a people who are facing record malnutrition according to the United Nations since around half of the population is today in a situation of acute hunger. It is the human face of this despair that Ebrahim Noroozi depicts in some fifty quite striking images.
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