World Press Photo contest winners

The winners were chosen from a staggering 61,062 entries by 3,851 photographers from 130 countries, and offer a profound look at human resilience, adversity, and the common threads that unite us all. Witness these powerful stories in our full gallery of this year’s global and regional champions.

A resident fishes on the Cileungsi River in Indonesia, now marred by thick foam from industrial waste run-off. The pollution, intensified by a dry season, threatens local health and underscores the urgent need for stronger environmental protections. Picture: Arie Basuki

Filipino fishermen navigate around barriers set by the China Coast Guard near Scarborough Shoal, a contentious area within the Philippines’ EEZ. The ongoing disputes in the South China Sea – a major route for global shipping and fishing – underscore rising geopolitical tensions. Picture: Michael Varcas/The Philippine Star

At Tarabari ferry point in Lower Assam, Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims unite to relocate shops from the riverbank in anticipation of monsoon erosion. This annual struggle reflects the broader challenges faced by the Miya community, who grapple with statelessness alongside environmental changes. Picture: Zishaan A. Latif

Mesut Hançer holds his daughter Irmak’s hand, who tragically died in her sleep during a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey. The quake, striking early on 6 February, claimed over 55,000 lives, highlighting the lethal mix of natural disaster and inadequate building practices. Picture: Adem Altan/AFP

Paul Du, a 19-year-old Karenni Nationalities Defense Force rebel, finds a moment of rest under a tree on the frontline in Yangon, Myanmar. Amid the ongoing civil war following the February 2021 military coup, such images capture the resilience and trials of those opposing the junta. Picture: Ta Mwe/Sacca Photo, VII Foundation, Frontline Club, W. Eugene Smith Grant

In Saesie Tsada, Ethiopia, 24-year-old Kibrom Berhane reunites with his mother after two years with the Tigray Defense Forces. His return marks a personal victory amid the broader tragedy of the Tigray conflict, which only recently reached a ceasefire. Picture: Vincent Haiges/Republik, Real 21

In Mekele, Tigray, Shila, a 32-year-old mother, grapples with the trauma of being assaulted by Eritrean soldiers during the conflict. Despite the joy at the birth of her son, she faces the daunting prospect of revealing the truth to her other children. Picture: Arlette Bashizi/The Washington Post

This year’s Global Photo of the Year is from Khan Younis, Gaza. Inas Abu Maamar mourns as she cradles her niece Saly, 5, killed in an Israeli missile strike that also claimed the lives of four other family members. Despite evacuations to southern Gaza, the area faced severe bombings, with women and children forming the majority of casualties by the end of 2023. Picture: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

“Silenced Crimes” sheds light on the overlooked persecution of LGBTQI+ individuals in the Peruvian Amazon by insurgent groups like Shining Path and MRTA from 1980 to 2000. Despite the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report in 2003, the specific suffering of the LGBTQI+ community during this period remains unrecognised officially. Picture: Marco Garro/Pulitzer Center

In Punta de Mata, Venezuela, residents engage in a game of Animal Lotto against the backdrop of one of the world’s largest gas flares. This stark contrast highlights the environmental and social decay stemming from Venezuela’s oil industry crisis, as 82% of the country’s population now lives in poverty. Picture: Adriana Loureiro Fernandez/The New York Times

This image captures the serene yet precarious environment of Callala Bay in NSW. Although largely spared by the 2019-2020 wildfires, the constant threat looms, symbolising the nation’s struggle with both its colonial past and a climate-stressed future. Picture: Aletheia Casey

Roger Naquin frequently visits his uncle Freddy’s house in Pointe-aux-Chênes, Louisiana, despite it being infested with mould since Hurricane Ida. This personal story reflects the broader environmental crisis facing regions like nearby Isle de Jean-Charles, which is disappearing due to climate change and oil drilling. Picture: Sandra Mehl

An Israeli security forces officer searches the site of the Supernova music festival for personal effects of victims of the 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in around 1,200 deaths, more than 2,500 reported injuries, and some 250 people held hostage from the festival and communities near the Gaza border. Picture: Leon Neal, Getty Images

In May 2021, a boat from Mauritania full of dead men was found off the coast of the Caribbean Island of Tobago. It highlights the perilous journey many West Africans undertake to reach Europe. Visual journalists traced the origins of one victim, Alassane Sow, providing his family in Mali with some closure amid the ongoing migrant crisis. Picture: Felipe Dana and Renata Brito/AP

Monarch butterflies fill the air in El Rosario, Michoacán, within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Efforts are underway across Canada, the US, and Mexico to address the 80% decline in their population since the mid-1990s, caused by habitat loss and climate change. Picture: Jaime Rojo/National Geographic

A fisherman traverses the parched riverbed of an Amazon River branch near the Porto Praia Indigenous community in Tefé, Amazonas, Brazil. In 2023, this region faced its most severe drought on record, drastically affecting access and daily life for remote communities that usually rely on river transport. Picture: Lalo de Almeida/Folha de São Paulo

RWE proceeds with the demolition of the Immerath parish church to expand the Garzweiler open-pit mine. This action reflects Germany’s conflicting energy policies: promoting renewable energy while continuing to rely on coal, leading to the destruction of communities and landscapes in the Rhineland. Picture: Daniel Chatard

A resident of al-Zahra walks through the rubble of homes destroyed in Israeli air strikes. The strikes hit around 25 apartment blocks in the university and residential neighbourhood. Picture: Mustafa Hassouna/Anadolu Images

Women from the Mapuche community perform a sacrificial lamb ritual in Maihue, Los Ríos, Chile. This ceremony reflects their deep spiritual connection to the land, which is becoming increasingly threatened by commercial exploitation and the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights. Picture: Pablo E. Piovan/Greenpeace Award, GEO, National Geographic Society

Theo Dagnaud checks the horizon in Quebec, Canada, to mark an area as “controlled” after devastating forest fires. The 2023 fire season, fuelled by extreme heat and drought, severely affected all Canadian provinces and burnt an unprecedented amount of land. Picture: Charles-Frédérick Ouellet/The Globe and Mail, CALQ

In Kherson, Ukraine, a volunteer rescues cats amid the devastation caused by the 19-day flooding from the breached Kakhovka Dam. The catastrophic event in June 2023 flooded thousands of homes and resulted in numerous fatalities. Picture: Johanna Maria Fritz/Die Zeit

Children gaze at an apple in a camp for internally displaced people near Kabul, Afghanistan, highlighting the severe economic and humanitarian crises following the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Picture: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

In a review of the NASA and United States National Archives, the photographer found no documentation on the contributions of the queer community to the space program. The absence inspired her to imagine The Gay Space Agency, a diverse and inclusionary institution that commemorates and celebrates the history of queer astronauts. Picture: Mackenzie Calle

72-year-old Lotomau Fiafia, a community elder, stands with his grandson John at the point where he remembers the shoreline used to be when he was a boy in Salia Bay, Kioa Island, Fiji. Rising sea levels and eroding shorelines means over 600 communities around Fiji could be forced to relocate in the coming years. Picture: Eddie Jim/The Age/Sydney Morning Herald

Protesters stormed Three Powers Plaza, home to the headquarters of Brazil’s three main constitutional powers, following Lula da Silva’s presidential win. Smashing windows, damaging exteriors and looting businesses, hundreds of extreme-right supporters demonstrated their allegiance to former president, Jair Bolsonaro. Picture: Gabriela Biló/Folha de São Paulo

The Satyrus effendi is a rare butterfly species named after Rustam Effendi, a Soviet Azerbaijani entomologist and the photographer’s father. Pictured here is his friend and protégé, Parkev Kazarian. For more than a decade, Effendi and Kazarian went on butterfly hunting trips together across the now contested borderlands between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Picture: Rena Effendi/VII Photo, National Geographic Society

A husband takes his wife, struggling with dementia, to view the cherry blossoms bloom around the botanical gardens. Japan’s ageing population has one of the highest proportions of elderly people with dementia in the world, with about seven million citizens expected to live with symptoms in 2025. Picture: Kazuhiko Matsumura/The Kyoto Shimbun

Before going to sleep, Jiuer and her husband usually chant sutras together. This evening, Jiuer – who is suffering from cancer – is physically unable to join him, so she chants from bed. Picture: Wang Naigong

A young man bounces off a fence-post in a soccer field in Gafsa, a region crucial to the Tunisian economy for its phosphate mines and marked by high youth unemployment. More than 40% of Tunisia’s population is aged 15-34, with unemployment of youth under 24 at around 40%. Picture: Zied Ben Romdhane/Magnum Photos, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, AIM LAB

STORIES

The following three photography sets comprise the World Press Photo Story of the Year, the Open Format Award and the Long Term Project Award. See these incredible winners below.

Valim-babena by Lee-Ann Olwage

In Madagascar, lack of public awareness surrounding dementia means that people displaying symptoms of memory loss are often stigmatised. For years, 91-year-old Paul Rakotozandriny, known to his family as “Dada Paul”, who lives with dementia, has been cared for by his daughter Fara Rafaraniriana. Their story illustrates the Malagasy principle of “valim-babena” – the duty of grown children to help their parents.

Dada Paul and his granddaughter Odliatemix get ready for church. He has lived with dementia for 11 years, although for much of that time his family assumed he had “gone mad” or attributed the symptoms to alcohol consumption. Only his daughter Fara noticed something different and continued caring for him. Picture: Lee-Ann Olwage/GEO

Fara Rafaraniriana walks to church on Sunday morning with her daughter Odliatemix and her father Dada Paul. Fara first recognised Dada Paul’s dementia when he, a retired chauffeur, couldn’t find his way home after picking her up from work. Picture: Lee-Ann Olwage/GEO

Fara looks on as Dada Paul cleans a fish, as he does every Sunday afternoon. His fingers tremble as he does so, but he can still manage the task and finds it calming. Picture: Lee-Ann Olwage/GEO

Fara and her daughter Odliatemix lie together on the bed they share with Dada Paul. Fara is the sole provider for the family of three. Only one organisation in Madagascar, Masoandro Mody, provides support and training to family members of people living with dementia. Picture: Lee-Ann Olwage/GEO

War Is Personal by Julia Kochetova

Amid tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and an effective stalemate that has lasted for months, there are no signs of peace on the horizon for Russia’s war in Ukraine. While news media updates its audience with statistics and maps, and international attention drifts elsewhere, photographer Julia Kochetova has created a personal website that brings together photojournalism with the personal documentary style of a diary to show the world what it is like to live with war as an everyday reality.

Conscripts of 68th Brigade train in Donetsk region, not far from the frontline. 68th Brigade recently liberated the village of Blagodatne during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Picture: Julia Kochetova

A woman shelters from the biting cold beneath multiple blankets after her escape from Irpin. Picture: Julia Kochetova

Firefighters and soldiers rest after fighting a blaze from a night attack in Druzhkivka. Picture: Julia Kochetova

Medics attend to a wounded soldier at the hospitalliers battalion, which is made up of a volunteers and medics. Picture: Julia Kochetova

The Two Walls by Alejandro Cegarra

Since 2019, Mexico has transformed from a country that welcomed migrants and asylum seekers at its southern border to one that enforces strict immigration policies very similar to those of the United States. Immigration and foreign policies implemented by different US administrations, COVID-19 protocols, and political and economic turmoil across Central and South America contribute to the ongoing crisis at Mexico’s borders. These factors expose migrant families to violence, corruption, and precarious conditions in border towns. Informed by his own experience of migrating from his home in Venezuela to Mexico in 2017, photographer Alejandro Cegarra initiated this project in 2018 to document the plight of these deeply vulnerable migrant communities and highlight, with respect and sensitivity, their resilience.

A migrant walks atop a freight train known as “The Beast”. Migrants and asylum seekers lacking the financial resources to pay a smuggler often resort to using cargo trains to reach the United States border. This mode of transportation is very dangerous; over the years, hundreds have fallen onto the tracks and have been killed or maimed. Picture: Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times/Bloomberg

The De Coto family poses for a portrait aboard ‘The Beast” while heading to Ciudad Juarez. This photo was taken three days before the expiration of Title 42, a US COVID-19 prevention measure that in effect allowed deportation of migrants without reviewing asylum claims. Since 2020, there have been over two million expulsions of migrants by US Customs and Border Protection under Title 42. Picture: Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times/Bloomberg

Migrants use a homemade ladder to climb a section of the border wall with the help of a smuggler in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Picture: Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times/Bloomberg

Luis Fernando, Daberlys and Caroline hide from Mexican authorities trying to stop them crossing the Rio Bravo river. If successful, it will mark their final stretch before reaching the United States. Picture: Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times/Bloomberg

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All the winners of this year’s World Press Photo competition

STORIES

All the winners of this year’s World Press Photo competition

STORIES

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