2024-12-03
BRUSSELS – The team that brought the investigations of unmarked graves of migrants in 65 cemeteries buried over the last 10 years across Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, France, and Croatia has won the European Commission’s Award for Journalism.
The team that brought the investigations of unmarked graves of migrants in 65 cemeteries buried over the last 10 years across Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, France, and Croatia has won the European Commission’s Award for Journalism.
The Border Graves Investigation team received the European Commission’s Award for Journalism, Lorenzo Natali Award 2024.
The project focused on unidentified migrants buried in cemeteries in olive groves, on hilltops, in dense forests, and along remote highways. Each unmarked grave represents a person who lost their lives en route to Europe, and a fate that will remain forever unknown to their loved ones.
Receiving the award in Brussels, Gabriela Ramirez, on behalf of the investigative team, accepted the award and deeply honoured and humbled by the recognition of their work.
An extract of her speech shows that "As both a journalist and a migrant, I am often asked one question: Why? Why do people risk everything to cross rivers, forests, and jungles—pregnant women, parents with young children—knowing the dangers that await? Why do they come, knowing there’s a chance they may never make it, or that they will be met not with compassion but with walls, barbed wire fences and pushbacks, and yes, sometimes death?"
To read more about her speech, visit her LinkedIn post here.
