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Azam Ahmed, New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, has won the 2019 James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his investigation of gang murder across Latin America. In his series “Kill, or Be Killed: Latin America’s Homicide Crisis,” Ahmed chronicled the rampant and unchecked gang violence in the region.

In 2019, Ahmed reported a series on the homicide crisis in Latin America, the deadliest region in the world, outlining the root causes of the violence, for which he won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting and the Robert Spiers Benjamin Award from the Overseas Press Club.

Each piece delved into a specific issue in a specific country, using intimate portraits of those living on the front lines of the crisis: the inescapable cycles of violence in Honduras, the scourge of femicide in Guatemala, the pervasiveness of illegally smuggled U.S. guns in Jamaica, the making of a cartel assassin in Mexico and the violence of the state in Brazil.

Joining the event will be special guest Diane Foley, mother of James Foley and founder and president of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation.