Sednaya Prison, Syria: Moises Saman Wins the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography
We take a look at the series shot by Moises Saman in Syria last December, two days after the fall of Assad
Over the past twenty years, the New Yorker writer Jon Lee Anderson and Moises Saman have covered a range of conflicts together. After the fall of the dictatorships in Iraq and Libya, they uncovered significant evidence of the regimes’ brutality. In 2012, as Syria descended into violence, Saman and Anderson traveled to Aleppo with a group of insurgent rebels and witnessed an early glimpse of the war’s horrors. As of last year, the estimated death toll in Syria since 2011 was as high as 620,000, while 14 million people — more than half the country’s population — have been forced to flee their homes.
During the decades of Assad’s rule, any form of resistance was ruthlessly suppressed, with those involved being arrested and tortured in a network of facilities scattered across the country. Sednaya became the most notorious of these. Established in the late 1980s on a desolate limestone hilltop just forty minutes from downtown Damascus, it earned a terrifying reputation of torture and atrocity.
Two days after the fall of the Assad regime, Saman traveled once more to Damascus, documenting the tragic scenes at Sednaya as relatives searched through the remains for loved ones who had disappeared over the years.
Now, in May 2025, Saman’s work has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. The Jury recognized Saman “for his haunting black and white images of Sednaya prison in Syria that capture the traumatic legacy of Assad’s torture chambers, forcing viewers to confront the raw horrors faced by prisoners and contemplate the scars on society.”
Following the announcement, Saman responded: “It is the privilege of a lifetime to share the news of this recognition, dedicated to the memory of the lost and the missing. Thank you Andrew Katz for your brilliant editing and continuous support. Grateful to Joanna Milter, David Remnick, Jon Lee Anderson, Omar Hallouf.”
Saman was also part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, with Declan Walsh and The New York Times, for their investigation of the conflict in Sudan.
In June 2024, Saman traveled with Nicholas Casey to the Nuba Mountains, documenting the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (S.P.L.M), an “elusive mountain army,” and their quest to build a state within a state, encouraging residents to identify with their region as opposed to their religion.
During the war in Sudan, the area has been plagued by a series of disasters, including drought, disease and famine, exacerbated by the influx of growing numbers of internally displaced Sudanese fleeing the war in their region.
Declan Walsh and the Staff at The New York Times were awarded the Prize in International Reporting “for their revelatory investigation of the conflict in Sudan, including reporting on foreign influence and the lucrative gold trade fueling it, and chilling forensic accounts of the Sudanese forces responsible for atrocities and famine,” the Jury stated.
