1995 Photo Contest, General News, 3rd prize
Photographer

James Nachtwey

Magnum Photos for Time

01 July, 1994

A French army officer gives directions as an earthmover takes its load of bodies to a mass grave in a refugee camp near Goma, Zaire. To help stop the deadly momentum of the cholera epidemic, the French army mobilized earth-moving equipment to remove and bury the dead en masse. In an attempt to escape from the civil war tearing their country apart, about a quarter of the Rwandan population crossed the border into Zaire, where hunger and disease awaited them. Hutu refugees set up vast encampments in the plains below the volcanoes outside the town of Goma. Within days, the refugee camps were hit by a cholera epidemic. Humanitarian organizations established cholera clinics to try stop the spread of the fatal disease.

About the photographer

James Nachtwey

Photographs of the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights movement inspired him to become a photographer. While teaching himself photography, he worked as truck driver and as ...

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