Refugee photo wins 2016 World Press Photo award

The photo won the 2016 World Press Photo award. (Source: worldpressphoto.org)

The photo captures the worst migration crisis Europe is facing since World War II.

The photo, titled "Hope for a New Life," was taken at night on the Serbia-Hungary border, where more than a million migrants crossed in 2015 to reach wealthy European countries - more than half of them Syrians fleeing war in their homeland.

"Hope for a New Life," shot "blindly" by Richardson in the dark without any spotlights, completely convinced the jury with its amazing visual power and "haunting" quality.

To take this photo, Richardson had to live in a refugee camp with miserable migrants for 5 days.

World Press Photo jury head Francis Kohn, Director of the Photo Department of the French News Agency (AFP), said Richardson's photo has the power to captivate viewers thanks to its simplicity, yet its high symbolic meaning of barbed wire fences that separate borders.

In this year's competition, AFP news agency won big with 4 awards, including 3 works on the topic of the war in Syria. The first prize went to Syrian journalist Sameer Al-Doumy in the Spot News category, capturing the moment right after the airstrike that destroyed the city of Douma near the Syrian capital Damascus.

His AFP colleague Abd Doumany won second prize in the General News category for his photograph of children being killed and tortured in Douma.

AFP's third award was second prize in the Spot News category, awarded to journalist Roberto Schmidt for his photos of the horrific avalanche on Mount Everest caused by the earthquake in Nepal in April 2015.

Turkish AFP photographer Bulent Kilic took home third prize in the same category with his series of photos of Syrian refugees at the Turkish border.

A total of 82,951 works were submitted to the contest this year by 5,775 journalists representing 128 countries./.

According to vietnamplus