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Warren Richardson has won first prize at the World Press Photo awards for his powerful black-and-white picture of a migrant passing a baby through a barbed wire fence while crossing into Hungary from Serbia.
The Australian photographer snapped the moving moment on 28 August last year and judges knew it was “important” as soon as it was submitted.
“It had such power because of its simplicity, especially the symbolism of the barbed wire,” said Francis Kohn, jury chair and photo director of Agence France-Presse. “We thought it had almost everything in there to give a strong visual of what’s happening with the refugees. I think it’s a very classical photo and at the same time it’s timeless.”
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winnersShow all 15 1 /15World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Tough Times for Orangutans' by Tim Laman (USA): Nature, 1st Prize Stories A Sumatran orangutan threatens another nearby male in the Batang Toru Forest, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. The lives of wild orangutans are brought to light. Threats to these orangutans from fires, the illegal animal trade and loss of habitat due to deforestation have resulted in many orphan orangutans ending up at rehabilitation centers
© Tim Laman/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Storm Front on Bondi Beach' by Rohan Kelly (Australia): Nature, 1st Prize Singles A massive 'cloud tsunami' looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach
© Rohan Kelly/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Exposure' by Kazuma Obara (Japan): People, 1st Prize Stories "My mother said that it was a typically quiet day, warm and windy. She and my father opened the window and they felt completely safe on the day of the explosion, the 26th of April 1986." The world’s worst nuclear accident happened on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Just 5 months after the disaster, a girl was born in Kiev just 100 km south from Chernobyl. The wind included a great amount of radioactive elements, and the girl became one of the victims of the tragedy. This series of pictures represent the last 30 years of the life of that invisible girl. All pictures taken on old Ukrainian color negative films, which were found in the city of Pripyat, located 5 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
© Kazuma Obara/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Waiting to Register' by Matic Zorman (Slovenia): People, 1st Prize Singles A child is covered with a raincoat while she waits in line to register at a refugee camp in Preševo, Serbia
© Matic Zorman/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Hope for a New Life' by Warren Richardson (Australia): Spot News, 1st Prize Singles, World Press Photo of the Year A man passes a baby through the fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border in Röszke, Hungary
© Warren Richardson/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners ' Aftermath of Airstrikes in Syria' by Sameer Al-Doumy (Syria): Spot News, 1st Prize Stories
© Sameer Al-Doumy/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Europe's Refugee Crisis' by Sergey Ponomarev (Russia): General News, 1st Prize Stories Refugees arrive by boat near the village of Skala on Lesbos, Greece
© Sergey Ponomarev/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'IS Fighter Treated at Kurdish Hospital' by Mauricio Lima (Brazil): General News, 1st Prize Singles A doctor rubs ointment on the burns of Jacob, a 16-year-old Islamic State fighter, in front of a poster of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, at a Y.P.G. hospital compound on the outskirts of Hasaka, Syria
© Mauricio Lima/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'An Antarctic Advantage' by Daniel Berehulak (Australia): Daily Life, 1st Prize Stories
© Daniel Berehulak/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'China's Coal Addiction' by Kevin Frayer (Canada): Daily Life, 1st Prize Singles hinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi, China. A history of heavy dependence on burning coal for energy has made China the source of nearly a third of the world's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the toxic pollutants widely cited by scientists and environmentalists as the primary cause of global warming
© Kevin Frayer/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Talibes, Modern-day Slaves' by Mário Cruz (Portugal): Contemporary Issues, 1st Prize Stories Abdoulaye, 15, is a talibe imprisoned in a room with security bars to keep him from running away. Series portraying the plight of Talibes, boys who live at Islamic schools known as Daaras in Senegal. Under the pretext of receiving a Quranic education, they are forced to beg in the streets while their religious guardians, or Marabout, collect their daily earnings. They often live in squalor and are abused and beaten
© Mário Cruz/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Haze in China' by Zhang Lei (China): Contemporary Issues, 1st Prize Singles A city in northern China shrouded in haze, Tianjin, China
© Zhang Lei/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Vetluga's Hockey' by Vladimir Pesnya (Russia): Sports, 1st Prize Stories Evgeny Solovyov, head coach of HC Vetluga preparing the stadium for the match. Players of an amateur hockey team in provincial Russia before, during and after a game in the regional championship in Vetluga, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia
© Vladimir Pesnya/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'FIS World Championships' by Christian Walgram (Austria): Sports, 1st Prize Singles Czech Republic's Ondrej Bank crashes during the downhill race of the Alpine Combined at the FIS World Championships in Beaver Creek, Colorado, USA
© Christian Walgram/World Press Photo
World Press Photo Competition 2016 winners 'Sexual Assault in America's Military' by Mary F. Calvert (USA): Long-Term Projects, 1st Prize Stories US Army Spc. Natasha Schuette, 21, was pressured not to report being assaulted by her drill sergeant during basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Though she was hazed by her assailant’s fellow drill instructors, she refused to back down and Staff Sgt. Louis Corral is now serving four years in prison for assaulting her and four other female trainees. The US Army rewarded Natasha for her courage to report her assault and the Sexual Harassment/ Assault Response & Prevention office distributed a training video featuring her story. She is now stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Series portraying women who have been raped or sexually assaulted during their service with the US Armed Forces. At the moment, only one out of ten reported sexual violence cases goes to trial and most military rape survivors are forced out of service. Victims suffer from the effects of Military Sexual Trauma, (MST), which include depression, substance abuse, paranoia and feelings of isolation
© Mary F. Calvert/World Press Photo
Richardson, who is currently based in Budapest, Hungary, has explained a little about how his photo came about. “I camped with the refugees for five days on the border,” he said. “A group of about 200 people arrived, and they moved under the trees along the fence line. They sent women and children, then fathers and elderly men first. I must have been with this crew for about five hours and we played cat and mouse with the police the whole night.
“I was exhausted by the time I took the picture. It was around three o’clock in the morning and you can’t use a flash while the police are trying to find these people, because I would just give them away. So I had to use the moonlight alone.
Other winners were also announced across eight categories, with photos covering a range of world news from the Paris attacks and the Nepal earthquake to the aftermath of airstrikes in Syria.
Winners and finalists will be showcased in a touring exhibition opening in Amsterdam on 16 April.
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