The United Nations' cultural agency said Wednesday that it had awarded its annual press freedom prize to two Reuters reporters jailed in Myanmar over their reporting on the killings of Rohingya Muslims in the country. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been behind bars since December 2017, detained on claims of violating state secrets.

"They were arrested because they documented a taboo topic regarding crimes committed against Rohingyas," said Wojciech Tochman, a Polish reporter who headed the jury for the UNESCO prize.

The Guillermo Cano prize, named for a Colombian journalist gunned down in Bogota in 1986, will be awarded on May 2 at a ceremony in Ethiopia on the eve of World Press Freedom Day.

Rights groups have denounced the jailing of the two Myanmar nationals as an attempt to muzzle criticism of the government's treatment of the Rohingya minority.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019