General News - First Prize, Stories. They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals. Heavy rain pours as police operatives investigate inside an alley where a victim, Romeo Joel Torres Fontanilla (37) was killed by two unidentified gunmen riding motorcycles in the early morning in Manila, Philippines. © Daniel Berehulak, for The New York Times.
General News - First Prize, Stories. They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals. Six-year-old Jimji cries in anguish as she screams "papa" before funeral parlor workers move the body of her father, Jimboy Bolasa, from the wake at the start of the funeral to Navotas Cemetery in Manila, Philippines. Unidentified men abducted Mr. Bolasa and a neighborhood friend one night. Less than an hour later, their beaten bodies, with signs of torture and gunshot wounds, were dumped under a nearby bridge. The police claim the men were alleged drug dealers while their family members say they had only surrendered themselves. © Daniel Berehulak, for The New York Times.
General News - First Prize, Stories. They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals. Inmates watch as drug suspects are processed inside a police station in Manila, Philippines. © Daniel Berehulak, for The New York Times.
General News - First Prize, Stories. They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals. Funeral parlor workers carry away the body of Edwin Mendoza Alon-Alon (36) who was killed by an unknown gunman on the road in front of a 7-Eleven store in Manila, Philippines. © Daniel Berehulak, for The New York Times.
Contemporary Issues - First Prize, Singles. Taking A Stand In Baton Rouge. Lone activist Ieshia Evans stands her ground while offering her hands for arrest as she is charged by riot police during a protest against police brutality outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana, USA, on 9 July 2016. Evans, a 28-year-old Pennsylvania nurse and mother of one, traveled to Baton Rouge to protest against the shooting of Alton Sterling. Sterling was a 37-year-old black man and father of five, who was shot at close range by two white police officers. The shooting, captured on a multitude of cell phone videos, aggravated the unrest coursing through the United States in previous years over the use of excessive force by police, particularly against black men. © Jonathan Bachman, Thomson Reuters
General News - Second Prize, Singles. Left Alone. An 11-year-old girl from Nigeria (left), who said her mother died in Libya, cries next to her 10-year-old brother aboard an NGO rescue boat, on 28 July 2016. The children had sailed for hours in an overcrowded rubber boat with other refugees during a rescue operation on the Mediterranean Sea, about 23 kilometers north of Sabratha, Libya. Libyan smugglers often take advantage of refugees, charging anywhere from $750 to $3500 for a place on typically dangerous boats they say are heading to Italy. © Santi Palacios.
Long-Term Projects - First Prize. Black Days Of Ukraine. Civilians escape from a fire at a house destroyed by an air attack in the Luhanskaya village. © Valery Melnikov, Rossiya Segodnya.
Sports - Second Prize, Singles Gaël Monfils of France dives for a forehand in his fourth round match against Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia, during the 2016 Australian Open at Melbourne Park, Australia, on 25 January 2016. The Australian Open holds the record for the highest attendance at a Grand Slam event. © Cameron Spencer, Getty Images.
Nature - Second Prize, Stories. Pandas Gone Wild. Ye Ye, a 16-year-old giant panda, lounges in a massive wild enclosure at a conservation center in Wolong Nature Reserve. Her 2-year-old cub, Hua Yan ("Pretty Girl") was released into the wild after two years of "panda training". Her name, whose characters represent Japan and China, celebrates the friendship between the two nations. © Ami Vitale, for National Geographic Magazine.
People - Second Prize, Singles. Praying for a miracle – mental health problems in disabling environments in Africa. Hellen (41) lives with a mental health problem. Her illness developed later in life. In developing countries, over 80 percent of people living with mental health problems do not receive any treatment. In African countries, treatment often comes in the form of prayer from a pastor or traditional healer. Modern medicine is available to very few. A mental health problem often means relegation to the margins of society; life in mental health facilities often doing more harm than good, and coming attached with crippling social stigma. Cultural beliefs and associations that link mental disorders to witchcraft are deeply rooted in some communities. © Robin Hammond, NOOR Images for Witness Change.
World Press Photo of the Year. An Assassination in Turkey. Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş shouts after shooting Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey. © Burhan Ozbilici, The Associated Press.

Winners of the World Press Photo contest announced

15 February 2017

The World Press Photo Foundation has announced the winners of its renowned contests, the 60th annual World Press Photo Contest. Winning the coveted World Press Photo of the Year was Burhan Ozbilici, a staff photographer for The Associated Press, based in Istanbul. It honours the photographer whose visual creativity and skills made a picture that captures or represents an event or issue of great journalistic importance in the last year.

The image, which also won first prize in the Spot News Stories category, shows Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, a 22-year-old off-duty police officer, assassinating the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, at an art exhibition in Ankara, Turkey, on 19 December 2016. Altıntaş wounded three other people before being killed by officers in a shootout.

World Press Photo of the Year. An Assassination in Turkey. Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş shouts after shooting Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey. © Burhan Ozbilici, The Associated Press.

Mary F. Calvert, member of the jury, stated that it was “a very very difficult decision, but in the end we felt that the Picture of the Year was an explosive image that really spoke to the hatred of our times. Every time it came on the screen you almost had to move back because it’s such an explosive image and we really felt that it epitomizes the definition of what the World Press Photo of the Year is and means.”

Another jury member, João Silva, had the following to add: “Right now I see the world marching towards the edge of an abyss. This is a man who has clearly reached a breaking point and his statement is to assassinate someone who he really blames, a country that he blames, for what is going on elsewhere in the region. I feel that what is happening in Europe, what is happening in America, what is happening in the Far East, Middle East, Syria, and this image to me talks of it. It is the face of hatred.”

General News - First Prize, Stories. They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals. Heavy rain pours as police operatives investigate inside an alley where a victim, Romeo Joel Torres Fontanilla (37) was killed by two unidentified gunmen riding motorcycles in the early morning in Manila, Philippines. © Daniel Berehulak, for The New York Times.

Australian-based photographers, Getty Images’ Cameron Spencer and New York Times contributor, Daniel Berehulak were among the category winners, receiving honours in the Sports (2^nd prize singles) and General News (1^st prize stories) categories, respectively. Australian Getty Images photographer, Adam Pretty, was selected to be on the jury. British photographer, Stuart Franklin of Magnum Photos, chaired the jury.

The 2017 Photo Contest in numbers
The 2017 contest drew entries from around the world: 5,034 photographers from 125 countries submitted 80,408 images. The jury gave prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Syria, New Zealand, Turkey, UK, and USA.

Click here for the gallery of all 2017 Photo Contest winners.

Sports - Second Prize, Singles
Gaël Monfils of France dives for a forehand in his fourth round match against Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia, during the 2016 Australian Open at Melbourne Park, Australia, on 25 January 2016. The Australian Open holds the record for the highest attendance at a Grand Slam event. © Cameron Spencer, Getty Images. — Sports - Second Prize, Singles Gaël Monfils of France dives for a forehand in his fourth round match against Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia, during the 2016 Australian Open at Melbourne Park, Australia, on 25 January 2016. The Australian Open holds the record for the highest attendance at a Grand Slam event.
© Cameron Spencer, Getty Images.