TEHRAN – Iranian photojournalist Shayan Hajinajaf has won an honorable mention that was presented on the sidelines of the UNICEF Photo of the Year Award event.

He received the honor for his photo series “Two Wings of a Butterfly” depicting 13-year-old Zahra’s difficult fight against bone cancer, which ended in her tragic death.    

“Hajinajaf accompanied the girl’s ordeal intensively and with great empathy,” the organizers wrote in a statement published last week after announcing the winners.

“They shared moments when Zahra smiled and moments when she could barely breathe; moments of comfort with her family and moments alone in a hospital bed, attempts to walk at the beginning and the sheer agony at the end,” the statement added.  

According to the Iranian Pediatric Blood and Cancer Association, 2,500 children under the age of 15 are diagnosed with cancer annually in Iran.

UNICEF Germany launched the UNICEF Photo of the Year Award in 2,000 to acknowledge single photos and photo series that best depict the personality and living conditions of children worldwide in an outstanding manner.

A series by Argentinian photographer Eduardo Soteras won the UNICEF Photo of the Year Award in 2022. 

He has been documenting the situation of children in Tigray since 2020. Although destroyed, an elementary school library in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is where two children have taken refuge among the books.

American photojournalist Ron Haviv won second prize for his collection “I Once Had a Home”, which depicts some of the millions of Ukrainian children along with their parents displaced within their own country following the Russian invasion.

Third prize was awarded to German photographer Daniel Pilar for his series “The Secret School for Girls”, which shows groups of Afghan girls furtively sustaining education after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, and once again banned girls from attending secondary schools. 

Photos by Agoes Rudianto from Indonesia, Amnon Gutman from Romania, Federico Rios Escobar from Colombia, Mads Nissen from Denmark, Irina Werning from Argentina and Fabio Bucciarelli from Italy were also awarded honorable mentions.

Photo: A photo from Iranian photojournalist Shayan Hajinajaf’s series “Two Wings of a Butterfly”, which won a UNICEF honorable mention. 

MMS/YAW