Pakistani journalist Haroon Janjua wins UNCA award

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 11 November 2026 |  JP Staff Report

Pakistani independent journalist Haroon Janjua won the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize at the 2026 United Nations Correspondents Association awards for his Deutsche Welle report on Afghan refugees facing deportation by Pakistani authorities.

Summary

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani independent journalist Haroon Janjua has won the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize at the 2026 United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Awards for his reporting on the plight of Afghan refugees facing deportation from Pakistan.

Janjua, who shared details of the recognition with JournalismPakistan, received the award for his Deutsche Welle (DW) report examining the human consequences of Pakistan's deportation campaign amid growing tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.

Afghan families face uncertain future

His award-winning report, Pakistan: Lives of exiled Afghans crushed in Taliban row, published on November 8, 2025, documented the experiences of Afghan families who had spent decades building their lives in Pakistan but were facing an uncertain future across the border.

Reporting from Chaman in southwestern Pakistan, Janjua described families preparing to leave with limited belongings, children whose education was being disrupted, and women facing uncertainty about their rights and future under Taliban rule.

The report highlighted the plight of Afghans born and raised in Pakistan who had never known another home. Their circumstances illustrated the personal consequences of a deportation campaign affecting families with longstanding social, educational and economic ties to Pakistan.

Among those featured was a young Afghan medical student forced to abandon her studies. Her experience reflected the particular challenges confronting women returning to Afghanistan, where Taliban restrictions have sharply curtailed access to higher education and employment.

Janjua's reporting also examined the growing tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban authorities and the humanitarian concerns surrounding the return of vulnerable families.

Recognition for international reporting

The Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize recognizes outstanding print and online journalism covering the United Nations, its agencies and their activities.

The prize is named after Elizabeth Neuffer, a journalist and United Nations bureau chief for The Boston Globe who died while on assignment in Iraq in 2003. Her reporting frequently focused on conflict, human rights abuses, and communities affected by war.

Sponsored by the Alexander Bodini Foundation, the award is among the distinctions presented annually by UNCA to journalists whose work contributes to public understanding of international affairs and humanitarian issues.

The recognition marks another international distinction for Janjua, whose reporting career spans more than 15 years across Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

His work has appeared in several international news organizations, including The New York Times, Deutsche Welle, The Guardian, BBC World Service, The Times, Nikkei Asia, South China Morning Post and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Previous awards and reporting experience

Janjua previously received a UNCA Award in 2015. That year, he also won the IE Business School Prize for journalistic work on the Asian economy and the Population Institute's Global Media Award.

He subsequently received a South Asian Journalists Association fellowship in 2017 and a Pulitzer Center reporting grant in 2021.

Throughout his career, Janjua has covered political repression, religious persecution, women's rights, the fall of Kabul, Afghan displacement and the humanitarian consequences of conflict across South Asia.

His reporting has frequently focused on communities whose experiences receive limited attention in international coverage, including refugees, displaced families and people affected by political instability.

The 30th annual UNCA Awards ceremony is scheduled for December 3, 2026, at the New York Public Library. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is expected to attend as guest of honor.

Janjua's latest recognition draws attention to the importance of independent reporting on the experiences of displaced communities, particularly at a time when regional tensions, deportation policies and restrictions on fundamental rights continue to affect Afghan families.

ATTRIBUTION: Information provided directly to JournalismPakistan by Haroon Janjua. Additional background from his Deutsche Welle report (November 8, 2025) and the United Nations Correspondents Association's 2026 awards information.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Haroon Janjua