2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
First Place: John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Liberia Ebola - Umu Fambulle stands over her husband Ibrahim after he staggered and fell, knocking him unconscious in an Ebola ward on August 15, 2014 in the West Point township of Monrovia, Liberia. People suspected of contracting the Ebola virus were being sent by Liberian health workers for observation at the holding center, a closed elementary school with no electricity, running water, or medication for treatment. As the spread of the Ebola epidemic accelerated last summer, Liberia's national health system collapsed, and most hospitals and clinics closed. The government tried to quarantine the congested township of West Point with the Liberian Army, and had to lift it 10 days later in failure. Thousands of people died before international aid organizations had built Ebola treatment centers with enough to care for the sick. Liberians watched as health care workers in hazmat suits carried away their loved ones for cremation, a practice foreign to Liberia and traumatic for surviving family members. As the year wore on, the end of the epidemic was no where in sight.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Batu Flowers tries to convince local residents that the Ebola epidemic is real on August 16, 2014 in the West Point townshiop of Monrovia, Liberia. Many Liberians believed that the epidemic was a fraud and that people were dying from other causes, a suspicion fueled by lack of testing of Ebola victims.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A man carries out a girl from an Ebola isolation center as a mob overruns the facility in the West Point slum on August 16, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. A crowd of several hundred people, chanting, "No Ebola in West Point," crashed through the gates and took out the patients, many saying that the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. The center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the Liberian Health Ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying the virus.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Local residents gather around Saah Exco, 10, dehydrated and weak, in a back alley of the West Point slum on August 19, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The boy had been pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients when the facility was overrun by a mob on Saturday. A local clinic then refused to treat the boy, according to residents, because of the danger of infection, although the boy was never tested for Ebola.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Liberian Army soldier, part of Liberia's Ebola Task Force, beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The government ordered the quarantine of West Point, a congested seaside slum of 75,000, in an effort to stop the spread of the virus in the capital city. The quarantine proved impossible to enforce and was lifted after 10 days.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
An Ebola tracing coordinator checks the temperature of Benson, 2 months, finding her to have a fever of 100.76F (38.2C) in the West Point neighborhood on October 17, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Health workers later came to take the baby, his mother and grandmother to a holding center for people suspected of having Ebola. A family member living in the home had died only the day before from Ebola.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Liberian burial team prays disinfectant over the body of a woman suspected of dying of the Ebola virus on August 14, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The burial teams dressed in protective clothing, known as personal protective equipment (PPE), to avoid contact with the highly contagious bodily fluids of Ebola victims.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Sophia Doe sits with her grandchildren, while watching the arrival an Ebola burial team to take away the body of her daughter for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The children seen in the photo are daughters of the deceased. The woman died outside her home earlier in the morning while trying to leave her home and walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation even more traumatic for surviving family members.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads the bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pire at a crematorium on August 22, 2014 in Marshall, Liberia. The Ebola virus is most contagious in the corpses of the recently deceased, and the Liberian government ordered that all victims in the capital city be cremated.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Doctors Without Borders (MSF), health worker in protective clothing carries a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment center on October 5, 2014 in Paynesville, Liberia. The girl and her mother, showing symptoms of the deadly disease, were awaiting test results for the virus.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A health worker takes the temperature of U.S. Marines arriving to take part in Operation United Assistance on October 9, 2014 near Monrovia, Liberia. Some 90 Marines landed on KC-130 transport planes and MV-22 Ospreys to support the American effort to contain the Ebola epidemic. U.S. President Barack Obama committed up to 4,000 troops in West Africa to combat the disease.
John Moore / Getty Images
First Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A woman crawls towards the body of her sister as Ebola burial team members take her for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The woman had died outside her home earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation all the more traumatic for surviving family members.
John Moore / Getty Images
Second Place: Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Story caption: In summer 2014 Israeli Defense Forces launched 'Operation 'Protective Edge' following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. The 2014 war was the deadliest conflict between Israeli and the Hamas ruled Gaza Strip; killing over 2000 people in Gaza, the vast majority of which were civilians. Picture caption: Palestinians search the debris of a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike for survivors in the Beach refugee camp, northern Gaza City, 04 August 2014. The attack came minutes after an unilateral humanitarian ceasefire announce by Israeli force, at least one eight year old girl died.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Palestinians walk next to the collapsed minaret of mosque in Gaza City, 30 July 2014. The mosque was destroyed in an overnight Israeli airstrike.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Rescue workers retrieve a body buried under the Al-Qassam mosque following an overnight Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, 09 August 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Two Palestinian girls run past a destroyed ambulance car as they flee their homes during a brief period of ceasefire requested by local rescue forces to retrieve dead and wounded from the Shuja'iyya neighbourhood in east Gaza City, 20 July 2014. According to news sources over 50 people died in Shuja'iyya during heavy shelling by the Israeli army.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Palestinian man cries as he hold the dead body of his young brother shortly after he got killed by an Israeli naval bombardment in the morgue of the Shifa hospital in Gaza, 16 July 2014. Four boys, all cousins from the Baker family aged nine to 11, were killed while playing on a beach next to the port of Gaza City.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Palestinian paramedic touches the hand of a dead girl in overflowing morgue of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, 20 July 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Palestinians mourn the death of a relative, who died when a UN school used as a shelter for internally displace people came under Israeli shelling in the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. According to medics at least civilians 17 were killed.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Palestinian family who fled their homes is en route to seek shelter in a UN school in Khan Younis, central Gaza Strip, 18 July 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Palestinian boy looks skywards while others inspect the damage of a car hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, 31 July 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Palestinians looks at an unexploded Israeli tank shell outside Beit Hanoun northern Gaza Strip, 26 July 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A doctor cries while standing next to a table with the bodies of four dead children in the overflowing morgue of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, 20 July 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Second Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A young Palestinian girl who got injured when a UN school for refugees was hit by an Israeli tank shell lies on a hospital bed in emergency room of Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, 24 July 2014.
Oliver Weiken / European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)
Third Place: Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Tens of thousands of Muslims in Central African Republic are fleeing to neighboring countries by plane and truck as Christian militias stage brutal attacks, shattering the social fabric of this war-ravaged nation. In towns and villages as well as in the capital, Christian vigilantes wielding machetes have killed scores of Muslims, who are a minority here, and burned and looted their houses and mosques. Tens of thousands of Muslims have fled their homes. The cycle of chaos is fast becoming one of the worst outbreaks of violence along Muslim-Christian fault lines in recent memory in sub-Saharan Africa, tensions that have also plagued countries such as Nigeria and Sudan. A Christian man chases a suspected Seleka officer in civilian clothes with a knife near the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, Monday Dec. 9, 2013. Both Christian and Muslim mobs went on lynching sprees as French Forces deployed in the capital. The Seleka man was taken into custody by French forces who fired warning shots to disperse the crowds.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A young man screams in pain as he lies in a pool of blood on the floor of Bangui's hospital, Bangui, Central African Republic, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013, following a day-long gun battle between Seleka soldiers and Christian militias. Fighting came to the capital of Central African Republic on Thursday, leaving dozens of casualties and posing the biggest threat yet to the new government just as the U.N. Security Council authorized an intervention force to prevent a bloodbath between Christians and Muslims.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A Christian mob attacks a mosque in Bangui, Central African Republic, Tuesday Dec. 10, 2013. Two French soldiers were killed in combat in Central African Republic's capital, the first French casualties since French President Francois Holland ordered a stepped-up military presence in the restive former colony to help quell inter-religious violence.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Suspected member of a Christian militia Sincere Banyodi, 32, lays wounded by machete blows in the Kokoro neighborhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, Monday Dec. 9, 2013. Vigilante crowds said they spotted him with grenades and turned him over to French forces. Both Christian and Muslim mobs went on lynching sprees as French Forces deployed in the capital. French forces fired warning shots to disperse the crowds.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Christians gather in a makeshift camp for internally displaced people set in the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, Friday Dec. 13, 2013. Over 30,000 have gathered there, prompting the UN to start food distribution a kilometer away. Elsewhere in town, French troops backed by an helicopter traded fire with unidentified assailants as France's Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Bangui. More than 500 people have been killed over the past eight days in sectarian fighting in Central African Republic.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Anti-Balaka Christian militiamen walk through a forest clearing outside Central African Republic's capital Bangui Sunday Dec. 15, 2013. The leader of the Christian militia says his fighters wont put down their rebellion until President Michel Djotodia is gone from power, raising the specter of a prolonged sectarian conflict in the country. More than 600 people have been killed since Anti-Balaka launched a strike over Bangui last week before being pushed back.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Captain Osman listens to Colonel Anuar Mustapha during a briefing of Seleka soldiers manning a checkpoint in Boali, some 80kms (50 miles) North of Bangui, Central African Republic, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. To try to put an end to sectarian violence, the UN security council is scheduled to pass a motion allowing French troops to deploy in the country in order to protect civilians and insure security by all necessary means.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Newly enlisted FACA (Central African Armed Forces) soldiers drag the lifeless body of a suspected Muslim Seleka militiaman moments after Central African Republic Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza addressed the troops in Bangui, Wednesday Feb. 5, 2014. The victim was lynched by hundreds of recruits, pelting him with bricks and mutilating his body with knives.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Christian children from the village of Bouebou, some 40 kms (30 miles) North of Bangui, Central African Republic, are packed in the trunk of a taxi to flee sectarian violence Wednesday Dec. 4, 2013. Over 500 villagers have fled towards the capital Bangui fearing repression from Seleka fighters following the killing of Muslim residents by the Anti-Balaka militias Monday Dec. 2 nearby. The UN security council is scheduled to pass a motion allowing French troops to deploy in the country in order to protect civilians and insure security by all necessary means.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Civilians wait for further treatment at Bangui's hospital, Bangui, Central African Republic, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013 following a day-long gun battle between Seleka soldiers and Christian militias. Fighting came to the capital of Central African Republic on Thursday, leaving dozens of casualties and posing the biggest threat yet to the new government just as the U.N. Security Council authorized an intervention force to prevent a bloodbath between Christians and Muslims.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
A severely malnourished child cries on his hospital bed at Bangui's pediatric center in Bangui, Central African Republic, Tuesday Dec. 17, 2013. According to UNICEF's doctor Celestin Traore, even though malnutrition is high in the country, the problem is worsening due to the conflict. Traore expects to see over 150 malnourished children daily in the coming days as the humanitarian situation worsens. Over 1600 French troops have been deployed to the country in an effort to put an end to sectarian violence.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press
Third Place - 2014 Chris Hondros Memorial International News
Muslim men organized in militias with machetes rough up a Christian man while checking him for weapons in the Miskine neighbourhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, Friday Dec. 13, 2013. A band of about a dozen Muslim men with machetes faced off against an equally large group of Christian youths. Also in Miskine, French troops backed by a helicopter traded fire with unidentified assailants as France's Defense mMinister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in tBangui. More than 500 people have been killed over the past eight days in sectarian fighting in Central African Republic.
Jerome Delay / Associated Press