Ulrich Wickert Journalism Award for DW’s Mariel Müller

The jury honored Mariel Müller for her reporting from Sudan, one of the world’s most difficult conflict zones to access. Through sensitive interviews and close, on-the-ground reporting, she makes the complexities of the conflict tangible by focusing on the people whose experiences reveal its human impact.

Müller secured rare permission from the Sudanese army to film in the country and traveled to the embattled capital, Khartoum. Her documentary offers a rare look inside a conflict that has received relatively little international attention despite its scale. Sudan has been at war since 2023, when fighting broke out between the armed forces, led by de facto president and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. The conflict has displaced as many as 12 million people. 

“This award shows that we are living up to our journalistic commitment to report from regions where independent journalism is particularly difficult,” said Dr. Nadja Scholz, DW Managing Director of Programming. “The fact that Mariel Müller and her team were granted this rare access to Sudan reflects DW’s strong presence in the region. Congratulations to the entire team on this outstanding achievement.” 

The full documentary, “War in Sudan – The Forgotten Crisis,” is available in German on DW Documentary’s YouTube channel.

The film is the result of cross-departmental collaboration across DW locations. It was filmed by John Irungu from the DW team in Nairobi, produced by Ammar Awad Sharif and Mariel Müller, and edited by Axel Rowohlt and Patricia Szilagyi. 

The Ulrich Wickert Foundation has presented journalism awards since 2012 for reporting that draws attention to the situation of children around the world. This year, 129 journalists from 10 countries submitted entries.