Crime Without Punishment by Jérôme Sessini

Crime Without Punishment

Spot News, first prize stories

July 18, 2014

Rescue workers search for remains in the area where flight MH17 went down. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur at a height of 33,000 feet (10,058 meters), crashed into the countryside in eastern Ukraine, in rebel-held territory near the Russian border, on 17 July. All 298 people on board were killed. Wreckage was scattered over a radius of some two kilometers, near the villages of Rozsypne, Pelahiivka and Grabove. Evidence began to emerge that MH17 had been brought down by a missile. According to experts, an SA-11 surface-to-air missile of the sort allegedly supplied to the rebels by Russia, was the only weapon capable of such a range, although some suggested a Ukrainian military plane had been involved. Ongoing fighting in the area, and the presence of militiamen at the site, restricted initial investigations into the crash.

Commissioned by: Magnum Photos for Time / De Standaard

Location: Torez, Ukraine

Photo Credit: Jérôme Sessini

Jérôme Sessini builds a passion for photography, discovering documentary photography through books shown by a friend, a photographer.

He initiates his own practice, shooting people, landscapes, and daily lives of those around his native Eastern France (with Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Mark Cohen in mind). Sessini has the international current events: Palestine, Iraq (from 2003 to 2008), Aristide’s fall in Haiti (2004), the conquest of Mogadishu by the Islamic militias and the war in Lebanon (2006), Libya war (2011), and Syria (2012).

Sessini’s work is immediately internationally acknowledged. It is published by prestigious newspapers and magazines among which are Time magazine, Stern, and De Standaart. His photography also leads to single exhibitions at the Visa Photo Festival in Perpignan, the Rencontres d’Arles, the Bibliothèque Nationale François-Mitterrand, as well as with the French Ministry of Culture.

In 2008, Jerome Sessini starts a long time project in Mexico, a dive into the drug cartels’ war. This work has been awarded twice with the F-Award and a Getty Grant, and was published by Contrasto with his first monography “The Wrong Side”.

Jérôme Sessini joined Magnum as nominee in 2012 and became an associate in 2014.