Nicole Tung (Winner)

Thousands of people gathered at the historic Umayyad Mosque for the first Friday prayers after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Sunday, in Damascus, Syria, on Friday, December 13, 2024.

A rebel fighter with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) looked through the office of Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior advisor to Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, at the abandoned Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, on Tuesday, December 10, 2024.

Syrians celebrated the end of the Assad regime five days after Bashar al-Assad fled the country, in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood known for its opposition to the former government, in Damascus, Syria, on Friday, December 13, 2024.

Families searched a morgue for missing loved ones at Al Mujtahid Hospital, where the bodies of prisoners were gathered for identification from various locations following the fall of Bashar al- Assad’s regime four days ago, in Damascus, Syria, on Wednesday, December 11, 2024. Figures vary, but it is estimated that tens of thousands of people are missing as a result of the regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and political opponents. The task to find the missing has become a desperate search for families.

A defaced portrait of President Bashar Al Assad was seen in the abandoned Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, on Tuesday, December 10, 2024.

Relatives of Mazen Hamada said a prayer on the way to his burial near Damascus, Syria, on Thursday, December 12, 2024. Mazen Hamada, a well-known Syrian activist, was severely brutalized in prison by the regime before he fled to the Netherlands. He returned to Syria in 2020 for unknown reasons, and was re-arrested. His fate was unknown until the fall of the Assad regime on Sunday, when rebel groups opened the prisons and freed detainees. His body was found and identified by his family shortly after.

A man looked through documents to search for evidence of his missing relative in the subterranean prison at the complex of the Syrian military intelligence Branch 235, known as ‘Palestine Branch’ in Damascus, Syria, on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, four days after the fall of the Assad regime. Prisoners were released on the day Hayat Tahrir Al Sham entered Damascus. Some residents believed that approximately 150 people were kept in cells of this size. The Palestine Branch became one of the most notorious and feared military intelligence branches in Syria for its brutal torture methods towards detainees.

Families looking for missing detainees were seen attempting to identify bodies of former detainees, at the Al Mujtahid Hospital, in Damascus, Syria, on Thursday, December 12, 2024.

Fayez Abdulmajid Baghdadi, 61, and his nephews, shared breakfast before working to rebuild their family home, which was destroyed by regime bombardment in 2013, in Damascus, Syria, on Friday, December 13, 2024.

Children watched as a Land Cruiser, a car typical of the intelligence apparatus and police of the former regime, burned on a road in Damascus, Syria, on Wednesday, December 11, 2024. In recent days, symbols of the regime and Bashar al-Assad have been defaced and destroyed following the end of the regime’s rule over Syria.

A wounded Ukrainian soldier winced in pain as doctors and medics of the 33rd Mechanized Brigade provided medical attention to attempt to save his leg at stabilization point in the Pokrovsk district, Ukraine, on Saturday, September 21, 2024. The stabilization point covers a 90km stretch of the frontline where intense battles have been raging between Ukrainian and Russian forces in recent weeks.

Over a dozen prisoners of war who were captured in the Kursk region of Russia are seen after being brought into northeastern Ukraine on Friday, August 23, 2024. They were asked to identify themselves and the unit and battalion they were fighting with in Russia. The POWs had been captured that morning after surrendering to Ukrainian forces who had surrounded the area where they were fighting to claim more territory in Kursk region, following Ukraine’s incursion into the territory more than two weeks ago. The POWs were brought to Ukraine and given water, basic medical attention, and were held overnight before being transported to another location within Ukraine.

Anastasiia Korovkina, 6, played with her father Kostiantyn Korovkin, 38, in the shelter they have resided in since April, in Lyman, Ukraine, on Saturday, December 31, 2022. The shelter housed nearly 60 people at one point, according to residents, and is now home to 20 people who remain. Since Lyman was retaken in early October, many residents continue living underground as shells fired by Russian forces continue to target the key railway hub. Electricity and water have only been restored to some areas.

A missile hit a large residential building in Dnipro, Ukraine, on Saturday, January 14, 2023. The official toll named over 40 dead and dozens of wounded.

Valentyna Kavydova (center), 74, cried as she evacuated her home with the assistance of policemen with the White Angels evacuation team, a special unit of Ukraine’s National Police, assisted in Myrnohrad, Ukraine, on Tuesday, September 3, 2024. Myrnohrad, a coal mining town which is part of the Pokrovsk region, is approximately 6.5km from the frontline. The White Angels, which is made up of local police familiar with the area and have updated information on troop movements, often go into red zones along the frontline to deliver aid, and to evacuate civilians as well as the dead or injured. They have evacuated thousands from frontline areas in Donetsk region, including in Avdiivka before it fell to Russian forces earlier this year.

A woman lay dead with two dogs in a doorway of a building, a casualty of Russian shelling, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, Monday, January 2, 2023. The woman is believed to have died only fifteen minutes earlier when a rocket struck the shopping center.

Young patients of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, who had their faces painted, are seen in the shelter of the hospital complex in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, June 1, 2023. Okhmatdyt planned festivities and activities for their former and current patients - which include war-wounded children - to mark International Children’s Day. The staff made the decision to move the event to the hospital’s shelter, located in the oncology ward, after concerns for patient safety following the previous night’s strikes and continued air raid sirens earlier in the day.

A resident taking shelter at the severely damaged Zymnensky Female Monastery walked through the courtyard, as seen in Sviatohirsk, Ukraine, on Monday, October 3, 2022. Part of Sviatohirsk was occupied by Russian forces until September 12, when the Ukrainian military recaptured the town.

A soldier of the 15th Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard fired a 150mm artillery gun on Russian positions, south of Pokrovsk, Ukraine, on Wednesday, August 28, 2024.