In 2023, more than 500,000 people made the journey through the dense jungles of the Darién Gap on the Colombia-Panama border, most with hopes of reaching the United States.
This year, the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography went to the Associated Press for documenting migrants on that journey. The AP’s feature, pieced together from day-to-day coverage of a historic rise in migration through the Darién Gap, creates an intimate picture of a major news event.
The Pulitzer Board’s citation called the AP’s work “poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of migrants and their arduous journey north from Colombia to the border of the United States.”
Scroll to see the winning photographs.
Migrants cross the Rio Grande river into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, March 29, 2023, a day after dozens of migrants died in a fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)
A group of migrants sleep in a makeshift campsite as they wait to apply for asylum after crossing the border, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, near Jacumba, Calif. The group have been camping just across the border for days, waiting to apply for asylum in the United States. The Biden administration on Thursday will begin denying asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through, marking a fundamental shift in immigration policy as the U.S. readies for the end of a key pandemic restriction. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Migrants who plan to start walking across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S. gather at the trailhead camp in Acandi, Colombia, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. Pandemic-related U.S. asylum restrictions, known as Title 42, are to expire Thursday, May 11. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
A Venezuelan migrant stands covered in a wrap while texting, on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Migrants sit under a sign marking the Panama-Colombia border during their trek across the Darien Gap, May 9, 2023. Overwhelmed by the resurgence of migrants crossing the Darien jungle on the border with Colombia, the government of Panama announced on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, that it will take concrete measures. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)
Migrants walk across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S., Tuesday, May 9, 2023. Pandemic-related U.S. asylum restrictions, known as Title 42, are to expire Thursday, May 11. he upsurge in illegal migration to the Unites States starts in an almost unbroken chain of migrants being shuffled from Colombia through the Darien Gap jungle into Panama on an industrial scale that could approach 500,000 this year. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)
A woman carries her child after she and other migrants crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Migrants cross the Rio Bravo on an inflatable mattress into the United States from Matamoros, Mexico, on May 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Venezuelan migrants wave a U.S. flag at a television helicopter flying over the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, on May 12, 2023, a day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Migrants, mainly from Central America, who were traveling to the U.S. inside a tractor-trailer, are detained by Mexican immigration agents and National Guard members in Veracruz, Mexico, July 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez, File)
A Venezuelan migrant laughs as she jokes with her husband, who gave her a few flowers he picked in the grass, as they wait along the rail lines in hopes of boarding a freight train heading north in Huehuetoca, Mexico, Sept. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
Migrants who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico pass under concertina wire along the Rio Grande river, on Sept. 21, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Migrants sit atop a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. In Senegal’s capital, Nicaragua is a hot ticket among travel agents serving people who want to live in the United States. Many migrants take various flights to eventually arrive there legally and then journey illegally by land to the U.S. border with Mexico. The sudden draw of the United States seems driven in large part by social media posts by those who reached their destinations successfully and travel agents who know visa rules. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
Migrants reach through a border wall for clothing handed out by volunteers, as they wait between two border walls to apply for asylum Friday, May 12, 2023, in San Diego. The UN migration agency marks a decade since the launch of the Missing Migrants Project, documenting more than 63,000 deaths around the world. More than two-thirds of victims remain unidentified highlighting the size of the crisis and the suffering of families who rarely receive definitive answers. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the United States, May 9, 2023. Colombia and Panama are failing to protect hundreds of thousands of migrants who are crossing the Darien jungle on their way to the U.S. and have become increasingly vulnerable to robberies and sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday, April 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)
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