An extraordinary picture of the price of courage

A picture depicting the courage of ordinary people that helped to create a monumental chapter in the history of the Middle East was yesterday voted the World Press Photo of the Year for 2011.

The image captures "a poignant, compassionate moment" as a Muslim woman cradles a wounded relative during last October's uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen.

The photograph, taken by Samuel Aranda, a Spanish photographer working for The New York Times, was described by the chairman of the jury, Aidan Sullivan, as "a living image of the courage of ordinary people". He added that it demonstrated "the human consequence of an enormous event, an event that is still going on".

Reuters