Amsterdam: Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly won the World Press Photo of the Year award on Friday for the Reuters news agency with the image of a child's hand pressed against his mother's mouth at an emergency feeding clinic in the hunger-struck nation of Niger.
The photo, which the jury described as having "everything - beauty, horror and despair," took one of photojournalism's most prestigious prizes out of more than 80,000 images submitted by professional photographers from 122 countries.
The photo was taken in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on August 1, 2005.
It was the second year in a row that a Reuters photographer won the top prize.
The contest reflected a year of natural disasters, starting with the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the devastating hurricanes on the US southern coast and the earthquake that killed tens of thousands in northern Pakistan and India. Images of nature's victims shared the spotlight with photos of the casualties of manmade disasters and wars.
Reuters also won in the Spot News Singles category for a single picture, with Lebanese photographer Mohammad Azakir taking the top prize for a photo of a car bomb explosion in Beirut on February 14.
The Associated Press won in General News Singles, with US photographer David Guttenfelder's photo of a father and his son with a freshly amputated arm in a field hospital in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, taken on October 30. In all, 63 photographers from 25 nations won awards.
O'Reilly will collect a $12,000 (Dh44,000) award in Amsterdam on April 23, in a ceremony launching a worldwide tour of the winning images.
Getty Images and The Associated Press won the most prizes overall in the competition, with eight and seven awards, respectively.
Reuters won three awards, as the Photo of the Year was also a winner in the People in the News Singles category, where it took second place.
The winner in that category was Dutch photographer Sven Torfinn's photo of relatives mourning the death of a young girl at a refugee camp in Congo.
