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Cédric Gerbehaye Belgian. Born in 1977. Lives in Brussels. A journalist by training, photography imposed itself upon him as a form of journalistic writing, which he began to practice during visits to Indonesia. In 2002, for his thesis, he chose to work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was about analysing the deadlock it reached and especially understanding the developments of a failed process, the Oslo process, and the disappointment that this failure had caused, in Israel as well as in Palestine. Once his studies finished, he made new reports in Hebron and Gaza and then took interest in the economic and social crisis raging in Israel, as well as Kurdish issues in Turkey and Iraq. By the "photographic act", he seeks to understand and give evidence of a complex reality, to come closer to the other, while depicting it with an assumed subjectivity. In 2006, Cédric Gerbehaye received two awards at the Prix Photographie Ouverte of the Museum of Photography in Charleroi. In 2007, he took part in the Joop Swart Masterclass of the World Press Photo and received the second prize in young reporter category at the Bayeux award for war correspondents. In 2008, his work "Congo in Limbo" earned him three prestigious awards: a World Press Photo, the Olivier Rebbot Award from the Overseas Press Club of America and the Amnesty International Media Award. 
Travelling : Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
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Portfolio
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Portraits
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Stories
 | Demobilization in Burundi (2009) Burundi, an African state located south of Rwanda, is engulfed in civil war between Hutus and Tutsis. The National Liberation Front (NFL), the second largest Hutu rebel movement of the country, has entered negotiations with the government and has as of yet accepted to demobilize.
July 2009: demobilization centers are created in Gitega, near Bujumbura’s airport. In one week, 750 NFL fighters ceased fighting. They have laid down their arms, burned their uniforms, and returned to civilian life in exchange for money, clothes, soap, and a radio.
This demobilization strongly decreased violence in the country. As it did in Rwanda, the source of the conflict goes far beyond political... |
 | Micopax's action in Central African Republic (2009) The Central African Republic suffers repercussions of several conflicts in the region. Micopax is commissioning to help the strengthening of peace.
Enclave in the middle of the continent, Central Africa is surrounded by three countries (Chad, Sudan, and Democratic Republic of Congo) which know big troubles and which have the tendency to pour out on its territory.
Displaced people of North are suffering daily life in the bush where they went after the attacks of FACA (Central Africa army forces) in 2006.
Since July 2008, Micopax is trained by French Mountain Infantrymen. This group is composed by Gabonese, Cameroonian, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, and Equatorial Guinea’s contingents.... |
 | Congo in Limbo, North and South Kivu (2008)
In January 2008, a ceasefire agreement was signed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It involved the 22 armed groups that were in the conflict in the east. Amani, peace in Kiswahili, the program launched since the signature of this historical involvement action has just been extended for a year by President Joseph Kabila when murders, generalised rapes and forced recruitments keep on going and hostilities are back again at the north and the south of Kivu since the end of summer. More than 150,000 people have been forced to leave their homes and have come to add to the million of refugees in the camps or the foster families. More than a stalemate of a situation, it is a major crisis in... |
 | Lodz (European Works), Poland (2008) Lodz (pronounced ‘Wootch’) is today a city in transformation; but the metamorphosis seems unfinished. The town longs to be liked. Its residents are especially concerned by the impressions taken away by foreign visitors. Questions come in abundance, as if revealing a need for reassurance and confirmation of the change and dynamism of
recent years. But this obvious dynamism is perhaps not yet sharp enough for a young generation freed from a communist past and hesitating over whether to leave or to stay. |
 | Congo in Limbo (2007) In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), eight long years of armed conflict have plunged the country into turmoil and seen nearly four million people killed.
In 2006, the DRC finally engaged in a process of political restoration by organizing the country’s first democratic presidential elections. Unfortunately, the failure of the militias’ demobilization campaign and the creation of a new national army composed of an alliance of all armed groups were a handicap to the country’s recovery.
It is in eastern Congo, in Ituri and Kivu, regions filled with mineral resources situated at the frontier with Uganda and Rwanda that the situation is at the more tense and deadly. In August 2007,... |
 | Congo : Pentecostal churches (2007) After nearly a decade of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the major consequences of the conflict has been massive attendance of Congolese to the Pentecostal churches. The success of these churches is mainly due to the fact that they propose easy solutions to the problems of every day life in a country where economic and social life has been deeply injured. These churches are inspired by the American evangelicalism and the TV evangelists.
The solutions proposed by the unscrupulous pastors are mainly based on promises of material and immaterial prosperity (money, employment, marriage for single people, children for those who can’t have children etc…) and the hope for... |
 | Gaza : Summer Rains (2006) The launch of the Israeli operation Just Punishment in Lebanon in July 2006 has diverted the attention from the situation in Gaza. The eyes of the international community being riveted to South Lebanon and North Israel, the Israeli army was free to intensify the Summer rains operation, which started on the 28 of June after the capture of Corporal Guilad Shalit by a Palestinian commando. This commando infiltrated Israeli territory using a tunnel of several hundreds meters, excavated underneath the fenced of frontier. A technique the Palestinians master well and which they also use to smuggle weapons from Egypt. |
 | Gaza : Itnatkut (2005) Itnatkut: Hebrew word meaning separation, disconnection.
Four long days spent waiting, preparing to resist and praying for a miracle to come that would enable them not to leave their home. The Jewish settlers of Shirat Ayam and Neveh Dekalim settlements have hoped until the very end. There were as much journalists as Jewish settlers to be evicted.
The Israeli withdrawal of the Gaza Strip is the historic disconnection of the lands that the Hebrew State had been occupying for 38 years. |
 | Another sight of Israel (2005) Nowadays, many Israelis live below the poverty line. Indeed, reports show that a great deal of the population is impoverished. War has shattered the economy and many sectors have suffered its consequences. In addition, austerity measures in recent years have slashed welfare payments in a bid to kick-start Israel's sluggish economy.The occupation of Palestinian territories costs a lot of money to the Israeli government who are therefore spending much less on social programs. The money spent on defense, settlement and barrier construction is obviously taken away from welfare payments which have been reduced by one third. Today one family out of five suffers poverty in Israel. |
 | Hebron H2, West Bank (2005) Hebron, located in the southern part of the West Bank, is the only Palestinian city where Jewish settlers live in the very heart of the town. Hebron - Al-Khalil in Arabic, Hevron in Hebrew – hosts a crucial symbolic and strategic stake: the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a shrine holy to both Muslims and Jews.
The town is divided into two parts: H1 under the control of the Palestinian Authority and H2, an area of 4.3 km² under the control of the Israeli authorities, which is the economic, historic and religious centre of the town. This zone includes the old city where 500 Jewish settlers live, split into four highly protected settlements.
Today, more than 50% of the Palestinian community has... |
Books
 | Congo in limbo In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a decade of armed conflict have led the country into turmoil. Still nowadays, people continue to suffer in their daily life of the consequences of the conflict, of diseases, malnutrition, under-development, and of bloody violence which continue. In 2006, the DRC is finally involved in a political restoration process, with the organisation of the first democratic elections. A political reconciliation process, founded on an extensive impunity for principal players of the conflict, have rapidly handicapped the country rebuilding. This handicap was made worse by the failure of the militiamen’s demobilization, and the failure of the constitution of a new national army, founded on the mixing of the different armed groups. It’s almost in the East of Congo, in Ituri and in Kivu, bordering regions with Uganda and Rwanda abounded in mining wealth, that the situation was and still is tragic and bloody, even if the other regions (South-Congo and North-Katanga) are not shielded from those scourges. In 2007, 437 000 people have to avoid their villages because of fights, rapes, forced enrolment of children, and exactions of all the parts. The deliberate and targeted uses of rape as war weapon to terrorize and humiliate people, through a vulnerable group, deeply attacks fundamental values of the community. One of the little-known consequences of this conflict is the massive influx of Congolese in the wake-up Churches. The success, gathered by those churches and their unscrupulous pastors, is principally owed to the exploitation of the helplessness of people who have a lot of problems in their daily life. The deconstruction of the economical and social fabric allows them to give unrealistic but temporarily comforting answers. In Kinshasa, the capital, we estimate today that the half of the people goes to one of the 8000 churches called “of wake-up”. Because of the presence and the emergence of several conflicts around the Democratic Republic of Congo (Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea...) combined with “failure” of elections, we can wonder about the “disinterest” of backers and international community for the East of Congo, when the situation is still in an extreme gravity. After the last violence wave, between August and December 2007 in Kivu, cause of fights between the 25 000 men of AFDRC (Armed Forces of DRC) and the 4000 rebels of deposed general Laurent Nkunda, the number of displaced people is estimated today at 800 000 people. Peace agreements of January 2008 have changed nothing. Civilians are always first victims, and armed groups as Congolese militaries continue to exploit illegally natural resources, and to use profits to fuel the conflict. Text by: Cédric Gerbehaye Publisher: e-center (2008) 54 pages  |
Awards
2008 - 
General News: 3rd prize stories (Democratic Republic of Congo)
2008 - POY - Pictures of the year (magazine news picture story) Third Place
2008 - The Best of Photojournalism, 2nd Place, International News Picture Story "Congo in Limbo"
2008 - OLIVIER REBBOT AWARD, Best photographic reporting from abroad in magazines, Newsweek,
"Congo in Limbo"
2008 - Amnesty International Media Award UK
2008 - Scoop International Festival of Angers, News series Award.
2007 - Prix Bayeux des correspondants de guerre - Catégorie jeune reporter
2007 - Joop Swart Masterclass World Press Photo
2006 - Photographie Ouverte du Musée de la photographie de Charleroi
2005 - Prix de la Fondation de la Vocation
Exhibitions
 | Congo in limbo (Caen) From 2009-10-05 to 2009-11-01 « I started working in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007 with the desire to highlight, investigate and publicize the situation and the lives of people in the East, about inadequately treated or totally absent in different media. Since then, whenever I go back with more questions and the will to continue to tell this story. To make this documentary work, it is important for me to have total freedom of expression and to do my job independently. Albert London expressed it very well in this sentence: "Our job is not to please, no more hurt, it is to bring the pen into the wound.» Cédric...  More information... |
 | Congo in limbo (New York) From 2009-09-19 to 2009-11-08 “Congo in Limbo”, shows a population still suffering the effects of the conflict in everyday life : disease, malnutrition, under-development, murder and violence...In 2006, the Democratic Republic of Congo embarked on a course designed to restore political process, and reconciliation. But the rebuilding of the country was prevented by the failure to demobilize the militia and the failure to establish a new national army. The situation was critical in Eastern Congo, in the regions of Ituri and Kivu, with it’s great mineral wealth and it’s strategic position bordering Uganda and Rwanda. In... More information... |
 | La guerre sans dentelle (Versailles) From 2009-05-12 to 2009-09-06 More information... |
 | Africa Report - Congo in Limbo (Bruxelles) From 2008-12-19 to 2009-01-17 In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), eight long years of armed conflict have plunged the country into turmoil and seen nearly four million people killed.
In 2006, the DRC finally engaged in a process of political restoration by organizing the country’s first democratic presidential elections. Unfortunately, the failure of the militias’ demobilization campaign and the creation of a new national army composed of an alliance of all armed groups were a handicap to the country’s recovery. It is in eastern Congo, in Ituri and Kivu, regions filled with mineral resources situated at the... More information... |
 | Congo in Limbo (Perpignan) From 2008-08-30 to 2008-09-14 Ten years of armed conflict left the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sapped of all strength. Today, the population is still suffering the effects of the conflict in everyday life (disease, malnutrition, and under-development), plus continuing murder and violence. It is estimated that there are 800 000 displaced persons in the country. Peace agreements drawn up in January 2008 have done nothing to change the situation. Civilians are always the first victims, and armed groups and members of national military forces continue to make illegal gains from the country's natural resources which... More information... |
 | Congo in Limbo (Shenyang) From 2008-06-22 to 2008-07-22 In the Democratic Republic of Congo, eight endless years of armed conflict have left a country bled dry and killed more than 5 million people. In 2006, the DRC had finally embarked on a course of political renewal, which entailed the organization of the first democratic elections. This process, largely based on the impunity guaranteed to the primary actors of the conflict, soon represented a handicap to the country's reconstruction, aggravated by the failure to de-mobilize armed militias and by the creation of a new national army blending together formerly opposed armed groups. The situation... More information... |
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