Congolese journalists win RFI's Dupont-Verlon 2019 prize

The Ghislaine Dupont-Claude Verlon award, launched six years ago in commemoration of the two RFI journalists murdered in Mali, has been awarded to Myriam Iragi Maroy and Vital Mugisho in an emotional ceremony in Kinshasa, DRC.

Left to right: Marie-Christine Saragosse, president of France Médias Monde, Myriam Iragi Maroy, Vital Mugisho, Cécile Mégie, director of RFI, at award ceremony, 2 November 2019. RFI

The journalist and technician received the award on Saturday 2 November, exactly six years after Dupont and Verlon were assassinated in Kidal, Mali, while they were reporting on elections.

Myriam Iragi Maroy, 33, is a journalist at Radio Top Congo in Kinshasa. She was selected for the clarity of her writing and the quality of witness accounts she gathered in her report Les filles-mères en RDC (young mothers in DRC).

“It’s a source of great pride and also a heavy responsibility,” said Maroy in her acceptance speech. “I know who Ghislaine Dupont et Claude Verlon were and what they represent."

Vital Mugisho, 26, received the technician award. As head of the technical team at Radio Star Bukavu, the jury praised the quality of his sound recordings and use of ambient sound in the report Le travail des enfants sur les chantiers (child labour on worksites).

“Radio Star is in Bukavu, it's the radio where Koko Bruno worked. He was killed in 2009,” said Mugisho. "I joined two years later. This prize will encourage me to work hard to pay tribute to him.”

The two laureates were selected among 20 candidates (journalists and technicians) at the end of a two-week training course in Kinshasa run by the Académie France Medias Monde in partnership with the Congolese national broadcasting network (RTNC).

The scholarship includes an intensive training course in Paris in February 2020 where Maroy and Mugisho. They'll be at RFI but also its partner organisations: Sciences Po school of journalism and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA).