Alessandro Cinque

Alessandro Cinque is a photojournalist based in Lima. His work delves into the devastating impact of mining on Indigenous people and their lands.

Cinque has been documenting environmental contamination and public health issues among peasant communities along Peru's mining corridor. In 2017, while working in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, he met a 53-year-old woman who told him that she had contracted cancer because the water in her village was so polluted. Since then, Cinque has been committed to photographing the effects of the pollution that permeates the crops, livestock, and homes of people residing near mining operations.

His attention to social and environmental issues affecting minorities has often driven his work. In 2017, he documented gold mining in Senegal and the smuggling of goods by the Kolbars on the Iraq-Iran border. In 2019, while studying at ICP in New York, he portrayed the Italian-American community of Williamsburg and traveled to Arizona to photograph abandoned uranium mines in Navajo territories.

His photos were published in The New York Times, National Geographic, Washington Post, CNN, Al Jazeera, Reuters, El Pais, Marie Claire, Libération, L'Espresso, among others.

In 2019, his work on Peru won first place in POYi's Issue Reporting Picture Story. In December 2019, he moved to Lima to learn more about Peru's culture and society.

He began contributing to Reuters' Latin America coverage while expanding his project on the impact of Peru's mining industry on Quechua populations. In 2021, he received the COVID-19 Emergency Fund For Journalists grant from National Geographic and global reporting grants from the Pulitzer Center.