BAYEUX, France (AP) – Journalists reporting on the conflict in Iraq, a humanitarian crisis in Sudan, the plight of children in Uganda’s insurrection and a deadly school hostage siege in Russia were honored Saturday with the annual Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents.

Jim MacMillan, a photographer for The Associated Press who covered fighting between Iraqi insurgents and U.S. troops in the holy city of Najaf, won first place in the photojournalism category, while AP photographer John Moore took second place for his work in Iraq. Both were members of the AP photo team in Iraq that won a Pulitzer Prize this year.

The French journalist Vincent Hugeux of L’Express magazine won the written press category for a report on children in Uganda, where a vicious rebellion has devastated lives.

The radio award went to two British Broadcasting Corp. journalists, Ishbel Matheson and Dan McMillan, who reported on rapes in the Darfur region of western Sudan during fighting between settled farming communities and nomadic herding tribes competing for land and water.

The television prize was awarded to four reporters from Britain’s ITN-ITV News. Julian Manyon, Sacha Lomakin, Artem Drabkin and Patrick O’Ryan-Roeder reported on the September 2004 school siege in the southern Russian town of Beslan, which ended with 331 dead, many of them children.

The contest’s first place awards include a cash prize of $9,230.

The Bayeux prizes were first awarded in 1994 to recognize journalists who excel in perilous conditions. Bayeux was one of the first towns liberated from Nazi occupation in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

AP-ES-10-08-05 1600EDT

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