Prize-winning photos capture the grit and suffering of flood survivors in South Sudan
It's a striking image: A woman stands in a pond of waterlilies, with bundles of lily bulbs and their thick stems wrapped around her shoulders like a cape. With a dignified gaze pointed directly at the viewer, it almost looks like a regal portrait.
Her situation, however, is anything but. According to Peter Caton, who took the photo, this woman – who has been displaced by catastrophic floods in South Sudan — is collecting the bulbs to eat.
"It's the only source of food people can forage for now," he says. "They grind them into a powder to produce a paste that's edible. It's hard work."
This duality of resilience and hardship is what Caton, an award-winning British documentary photographer,. Over the past couple of years, he has been photographing the devastating effects of extreme flooding brought on by climate change in South Sudan, which has struck the country . According to UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, by this crisis.
