Juarez photojournalist Christian Torres wins Pulitzer prize

JUAREZ, Chihuahua (KVIA) -- Juárez photojournalist Christian Torres Chávez, who works at Norte Digital, won a Pulitzer prize covering immigration for the Associated Press.

Torres has been a photojournalist in Juárez for over 15 years now. His dad and his grandfather were photographers on the border as well.

He started as a medicine student at Juárez's University (UACJ) before learning he wanted to pursue journalism as his life career.

When he was 17 years old, he started his career at El Diario de Juárez, covering violence and crime South of the border. This marked his career when violent events erupted in Juárez in 2010 and 2011.

Torres took a picture on March 29, 2023 showing two adult migrants helping a migrant child across the Rio Grande.

Torres, along with other staff members of the Associated Press, won this prize "for poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of migrants and their arduous journey north from Colombia to the border of the United States," according to the Pulitzer's website.

The caption of Torres' picture on the Pulitzer's website says: "Migrants cross the Rio Grande river into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, March 29, 2023."

When he learned he won this Pulitzer Prize, he couldn't believe it.

"Just yesterday I started to see it and started to process it," Torres said.

Christian took the picture a few days after dozens of migrants died in a fire inside the National Institute of Migration's detention center in Juárez.

"They were long days, they were 12-13 hour days working, we had to be there to see what was happening," Torres said.

When he took that picture of the migrants crossing, he never thought about winning a prize like this one, he was just doing his job.

"I'm very happy that they considered me, that they noticed me," Torres said. "I feel like that speaks well of us (Juárez journalists), that we are raising our hand and that we can be better than other people," he added.

For Torres, this motivates him more to keep doing what he loves; telling border stories.

"It has been very difficult, working as a freelance photographer on the border, it has been long days of work. Sometimes I can't see my children and my family because I am working."

Currently, Christian works in different news agencies and outlets based in Juárez.