The World Press Photo Contest 2019 – the Winners Announced

Image: World Press Photo Winner, 2019. A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border on 12 June 2018 in McAllen, Texas. They had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by US Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing centre. The following week the Trump administration, under pressure from the public and lawmakers, ended its controversial policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Since 1955 the World Press Photo Contest has recognized professional photographers for the best pictures contributing to the past year of visual journalism.

Discover the stories that matter, chosen by an independent jury of photography and digital storytelling professionals. 

World press photo of the year

A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border on 12 June 2018 in McAllen, Texas. They had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by US Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing centre. The following week the Trump administration, under pressure from the public and lawmakers, ended its controversial policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

General news, singles winner

The Migrant Caravan: during October and November 2018, thousands of Central American migrants joined a caravan heading to the US border. The caravan, assembled through a grassroots social media campaign, left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on 12 October 2018, and as word spread drew people from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala

Photograph: Pieter Ten Hoopen/Agence VU/Civilian Act

Contemporary issues, singles winner

A teenager rides around her neighbourhood in a pink 1950s convertible, as the community gathers to celebrate herquinceañera – or fifteenth birthday – in Havana, Cuba.

Photograph: Diana Markosian/Magnum Photos

Environment, singles winner

Petronella Chigumbura, an elite member of the all-female conservation ranger force known as Akashinga that operates in Zimbabwe’s Lower Zambezi, undergoes sniper movement and concealment training in the bush near their base. Akashinga (meaning the ‘Brave Ones’) is a community-driven conservation model, empowering disadvantaged women to restore and manage a network of wilderness areas as an alternative to trophy hunting.

 

Photograph: Brent Stirton/Getty Images

 

General news, stories winner

Yemen crisis: a veiled woman begs outside a grocery store in the village of Azzan, which was under the control of al-Qaida until the Shabwani Elite forces liberated the area in December 2017. This armed group is aligned with a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and is operating in the area in the fight against al-Qaida. Over the past year, the shadow war between al-Qaida and local Yemeni fighters has intensified, largely out of the headlines

Photograph: Lorenzo Tugnoli/The Washington Post/Contrasto

Environment stories, winner

 

The Lake Chad crisis. Orphaned children, mainly Nigerian refugees, live together as a group in Koran schools. During the day, they go begging. These children, who are known as Almajiri, live in the Lake Chad basin. All they have ever known is the weapons and deaths they draw on the walls of the city

Photograph: Marco Gualazzini/Contrasto

 

Nature, stories winner

 

A falcon hunting camp in the desert outside Abu Dhabi, UAE. This camp uses captive-bred Houbara bustards, the preferred prey species of Arab falconers across the region. In the UAE, where a huge amount has changed over the last 60 years, falconry is seen as a link back to the past and to the ancient culture of the Bedouin

Photograph: Brent Stirton/Getty Images / National Geographic

 

Portraits, singles winner

 

 

Curious residents and a street vendor selling material look on as the models (L-R) Diarra Ndiaye, Ndeye Fatou Mbaye and Malezi Sakho wear outfits by the Senegalese designer Adama Paris in the Medina neighbourhood of Senegal’s capital, Dakar

Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly

 

Sports, stories winner

 

Iran’s Persepolis football club misses an opportunity in a counterattack during the final match of the AFC Championship League against Japan’s Kashima Antlers in Tehran

Photograph: Forogh Alaei