AP photographer wins Gabriel Garcia Marquez journalism prize for project on ill sugar workers

[Judi Lynn]

AP photographer wins Gabriel Garcia Marquez journalism prize for project on ill sugar workers
By The Associated Press November 21, 2013 12:01 AM

MEDELLIN, Colombia - Associated Press photographer Esteban Felix on Wednesday won the journalist images category of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez International Journalism Award for his work on sugar cane workers affected by chronic kidney disease in Nicaragua.

Felix, a Peruvian who is based in Nicaragua, described the winning project, "Bitter Sugar: A Mystery Disease," as a multimedia and photography effort about the cane cutters at the San Antonio sugar plant.

"These people die of chronic renal deficiency after working at the plant for a certain number of years for reasons that are still not very clear," Felix said.

The other winners were Alejandro Almazan of Mexico in the features and reporting category for "Letter from the Lagoon." The news coverage prize went to Lucio Castro of Brazil for "Memories of Chumbo — or Soccer in the Times of the Condor," and Colombian Olga Lucia Lozano and her team won in the innovation category for their "Project Pink."

The awards are named for Colombian novelist Garbriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel literature laureate.

http://www.canada.com/news/photographer+wins+Gabriel+Garcia+Marquez+journalism+prize+project/9192168/story.html

(Short article, no more at link.)

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Nicaragua: mystery illness strikes sugar mill workers
Submitted by WW4 Report on Mon, 05/14/2007 - 02:09 Central America Theater

According to government figures, nearly 2,000 current and former employees of two sugar mills in the Chichigalpa region of northwestern Nicaragua suffer from chronic renal insufficiency (CRI), a fatal kidney disease. While the cause remains a mystery, a workers group puts the death toll at more than 560 employees of one of the mills alone over the past 30 years. Residents point to the chemicals used in sugar-cane fields at the San Antonio and Monte Rosa mills, which produce most of Nicaragua's sugar exported to the US. The mills deny responsibity, and say workers who sued the companies presented no scientific evidence.

A visit last month by Miami's El Nuevo Herald to Chichigalpa and neighboring villages like La Isla found "the air of a doomed region." Former mill and cane-field workers, dismissed when they showed signs of kidney failure, now walk the streets aimlessly or sit on stools outside their homes. They cannot work, as they become exhausted within minutes. All they can do is take calcium tablets to compensate for the loss of that element as a result of kidney failure, and slow their deterioration. In the end, they can no longer stand, and they just lie in bed. Their bodies are swollen, their breathing labored. They sip Gatorade to keep hydrated, and wait for death.

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/3827

[BainsBane]

1. I wish we could see some of the photos than earned the award.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Same here. I'll be keeping my eye out for it. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

3. There's a short video of Esteban Felix speaking regarding this tragedy:

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Mar 11 2013
Bitter Sugar: A Mystery Disease

Associated Press photographer Esteban Felix Tells the story behind the photos.
The workers who cut sugarcane and other crops in the sweltering coastal lowlands of Central America are being hit by an epidemic that is killing thousands of people a year. From Panama to southern Mexico, laborers are coming down with kidney failure at rates unseen virtually anywhere else in the world.

Families and villages are being devastated by the loss of nearly entire generations of men.
Since 2000, chronic kidney disease has killed more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the two countries that are by far the worst hit by the disease.

Rigorous scientific investigation has only just begun in the communities hit by the epidemic, and relatively few facts have been established, but scientists are coming up with what they believe to be a credible hypothesis.

They say the roots of the epidemic appear to lie in the grueling nature of the work performed by its victims.
They labor hour after hour without enough water in blazing temperatures, pushing their bodies through repeated bouts of extreme dehydration and heat stress for years on end. Many start as young as 10. The punishing routine appears to be a key part of some previously unknown trigger of chronic kidney disease, which is normally caused by diabetes and high-blood pressure.

Associated Press Photographer Esteban Felix spent weeks in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, one of the worst-affected communities, documenting the human toll of this epidemic. There, one of four men has symptoms of chronic kidney disease, which floods the body with toxins, causing weakness, cramps, headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath, and, in the most serious cases, death.

http://laislafoundation.org/bitter-sugar-a-mystery-disease/

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As a born asshole would say, "Why don't they just move to Florida?"