Swedish photographer wins World Press Photo award

Amsterdam, Feb 15 (AP) Swedish photographer Paul Hansen today won the 2012 World Press Photo award for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral. The picture shows a group of men marching with the dead bodies through a narrow street in Gaza City. The victims, a brother and sister, are wrapped in white cloth with only their faces showing. "The strength of the pictures lies in the way it contrasts the anger and sorrow of the adults with the innocence of the children," said jury member Mayu Mohanna of Peru. "It's a picture I will not forget." World Press Photo, one of photojournalism's most prestigious contests, issued awards in nine categories to 54 photographers of 32 nationalities. Hansen's November 20 shot won top prize in both the spot news single photograph category and the overall competition. It portrays 2-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her 3-year-old brother Muhammad, who were killed when their house was destroyed by the Israeli attack. They are being carried by grieving uncles, as their father Fouad was also killed, and his body can be seen in the background of the picture. "This prize is the highest honor you can get in the profession," Hansen told the Associated Press. "I'm very happy, but also very sad. The family lost two children and the mother is unconscious in a hospital." Violence in the Middle East, and its effect upon civilians, was the dominant theme in the hard news categories. The Associated Press won seven awards in all, including top prizes for a spot news series for Bernat Armangue of Spain for photos he took in Gaza during November; and for Rodrigo Abd of Argentina for general news single photograph, with a picture of a woman with a bloodstained face weeping in Idib, Syria, on March 10. She was identified as Aida, and her photo of silent grief is in some ways a reverse image of Hansen's winning shot. She received severe injuries when her house was shelled by the Syrian Army, killing her husband and two children. In other categories, Wei Seng Chen of Malaysia won in the sports singles category with a shot of what might be considered a local "extreme sport": a man clutching the tails of two bulls as they pull him through a watery rice field in Batu Sangkar, Indonesia. (AP) ST NKP NKP 02151823 NNNN