Mohamed (16) is the boy from the World Press winning photo: “Suddenly, the photo was sent”

When Mohamed Yousif’s parents saw their son in the piercing photo on Friday, they thought: that must be false. “They think everything on social media is false,” Yousif of the Sudanese capital Khartoum said via Facebook chat. Send a smiley emoticon.

Activists in Sudan immediately recognize Yousif

Yousif is very surprised this year for being the center of the World Press Photo, which was awarded on Thursday. A friend alerted Yousif to a photo while browsing Facebook at 1 a.m. on Friday. “Suddenly, the photo was sent.” I had never heard of the award.

The photo, taken by the Japanese photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba, was chosen by the jury of the World Press Photo Awards because it fits perfectly with the Sudanese ‘year of protest’ of 2019, which saw the youth of the African country at the forefront. The jury praises the entry because it inspires in times of conflict and shows the power of youth and art.

Yousif is one of thousands of young people in Sudan who, after months of protests, were partly responsible for the end of the 30-year reign of Omar al-Bashir, the general who had been the leader of Sudan before many of the protesters.

International journalists went to Sudan early last year to report on the uprising led by women and youth. One of them was the Japanese photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba. Against NRC He said Thursday that he did not know who the main character in the image was. It was his facial expression and voice that impressed him, Chiba said from his location in Nairobi, Kenya. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was so strong, so charismatic.”

Also read: “I couldn’t take my eyes off her”

Very young

Activists in Sudan immediately recognized Yousif. During the protests he was already noted for his drive and age. We establish through a video connection that he is the boy in that photo. Yousif is only 16 years old, “but I have the spirit of a 40-year-old man,” and he lives with his family. He won’t celebrate being in this photo, he says. “Only when all the people of the old regime are tried. Not only Bashir. Yousif, 15 years old at the time of the photo, remembers the day it was taken:” Even though the soldiers were standing next to us and power outages, we speak out loud and proud. ”

Last year, a photo of Sudanese student Alaa Salah, reciting a political poem on the roof of a white car, went around the world.

The uprising against Bashir began in December 2018 due to the rise in the price of bread. When a government was formed after the uprising and arduous negotiations between civilians and military personnel last year, new Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok made it a priority, among other things, to reform the economy, which is difficult to start because of U.S. sanctions. imposed in the late 1990s. “I hope leaders in Sudan understand that the future is youth,” photographer Chiba said of his winning photo. Yousif must first obtain his high school diploma after the school holidays.