Warren Richardson’s migrant baby image wins World Press Photo Award

PanARMENIAN.Net - A haunting black-and-white image of a refugee passing a baby under a barbed wire fence won the prestigious World Press Photo Award on Thursday, February 18 highlighting Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II, AFP reports.

Snapped by Australian freelance photographer Warren Richardson, the picture titled "Hope for a New Life" captured the drama of a border crossing between Serbia and Hungary as more than a million people made their way to Europe's shores in 2015 -- nearly half of them fleeing Syria's brutal civil war.

"I am humbled by being awarded this prize. I never would have thought I'd be chosen," said Richardson, 47, who originally hails from Melbourne but now lives in Budapest with his partner and three-year-old son.

"This picture continuously make me think: 'What if this was me? What if this was my own son?'," he told AFP in an telephone interview.

"I also see hope. Hope for this man and his child," he said.

Agence France-Presse scooped four awards including first prize for Syrian-based Sameer Al-Doumy in the Spot News stories category, for his images taken just after air strikes ravaged the city of Douma near Damascus.

This year's competition drew some 82,951 entries from 5,775 photographers from 128 countries.

Organisers said they had introduced a "new code of ethics and a transparent and rigorous verification process".

This follows a controversy last year when one of the major prizes was withdrawn after a photographer was accused of staging pictures portraying the gritty Belgian industrial town of Charleroi.