Arturo Perez won the Martin Adler Prize, a special award given out to recognise a freelancer "who has played an exceptional role in the telling of a significant news story". The award was set up in memory of freelance journalist Martin Adler who was killed in Somalia in 2006.
Perez lives and works in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez and has been covering the drugs wars that have engulfed the city. Sixty-four journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 and 11 others have gone missing since 2003, according to press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
"Arturo has captured with his camera shocking images which document the massacres, attacks, disappearances and car bombs which have left thousands of victims in a city which has become the battle ground for criminal gangs," says Manuel Carrillo, senior producer at Reuters Television in Mexico, who nominated Arturo for the prize, on the Rory Peck site.
"Despite threats and intimidation from these gangs and even from the security forces, Arturo has remained strong and unfailing in his coverage - mindful of the fact that in Mexico, other journalists have been killed just for fulfilling their duty to keep society informed."
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