
In Focus
Winners of the 2018 World Press Photo Contest
World Press Photo revealed their choices for 2017's best images, selected from entries by 4,548 photographers across eight categories.

World Press Photo of the Year
Demonstrator Jose Victor Salazar Balza, 28, catches fire during clashes with riot police within a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, on May 3, 2017.
Venezuela's angry opposition rallied vowing huge street protests against Maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution and accusing him of dodging elections to cling to power despite deadly unrest.
The photo wins the 'Picture of the Year 2018' award as well as the 'First Prize Singles: Spot News' category.
Photos: In Venezuela, Upheaval Shows No Signs of Slowing Down


First Prize Stories: Contemporary Issues
Veronica, 28, massages the breasts of her 10-year-old daughter, Michelle, as her other children watch in Bafoussam, Cameroon on Nov. 7, 2016.
Breast ironing is a traditional practice in Cameroon that involves massaging or pressing the breasts of pubescent girls in order to suppress or reverse breast development. The practice is carried out in the belief that it will delay maturity and help prevent rapes or sexual advances.


First Prize Stories: Environment
A man carries a load of PET bottles for recycling, at Olusosun landfill, Lagos, Nigeria on Jan. 21, 2017.
More than 3,000 tons of waste arrives at Olusosun daily. Upwards of 4,000 people, many of whom live on site, scavenge through the garbage by hand, collecting anything that is saleable or recyclable.

First Prize Singles: General News
Bodies of Rohingya refugees laid out after the boat in which they were attempting to flee Myanmar capsized about eight kilometers off Inani Beach, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 28, 2017. Around 100 people were on the boat before it capsized. There were 17 survivors.
Photos: Heartbroken Rohingya Refugees Bury Dead After Boat Capsizes

Second Prize Singles: General News
John Thompson being embraced after speaking out at a memorial rally for his close friend Philando Castile, two days after police officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of all charges in the shooting of Castile, in St. Anthony Village, Minnesota on June 18, 2017.

Third Prize Singles: General News
A group of Rohingya at the Leda makeshift settlement, who watch as houses burn just across the border in Myanmar, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Sept. 9, 2017.
Photos: Desperate Rohingya Refugees Face Squalor at Crowded Bangladeshi Camp

First Prize Stories: General News
Nadhira Aziz as she looked on as Iraqi Civil Defence workers digging out the bodies of her sister and niece from her house in the Old City where they were killed by an airstrike in June in Mosul, Iraq, on Sept. 16, 2017.
By the end of the battle for Iraq's second largest city, over 9,000 civilians are reported to have been killed and the rebuilding of the city will cost billions of dollars.

Second Prize Stories: General News
Rohingya refugees carrying their belongings after fleeing Myanmar, as they walk on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River, Bangladesh on Oct. 2, 2017.

First Prize Stories: Long-Term Projects
Hannah, and Sonja's navel, in Merkenbrechts village, Austria, on August 8, 2013.
Hannah and Alena are two sisters who live in Merkenbrechts, a bioenergy village of around 170 inhabitants in Waldviertel, an isolated rural area of Austria, near the Czech border.
The girls have two older brothers, but spend much of their time together in a carefree life, swimming, playing outdoors and engrossed in games around the house. A bioenergy village is one which produces most of its own energy needs from local biomass and other renewable sources.


First Prize Stories: Nature
Keepers feeding baby elephants at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya, on Feb. 11, 2017.
Orphaned and abandoned elephant calves are rehabilitated and returned to the wild, at the community-owned Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. The Reteti sanctuary is part of the Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust, located in the ancestral homeland of the Samburu people.

First Prize Singles: People
Djeneta, right, has been bedridden and unresponsive for two-and-a-half years, and her sister Ibadeta for more than six months, with uppgivenhetssyndrom (resignation syndrome), in Horndal, Sweden, on March 2, 2017.
Djeneta and Ibadeta are Roma refugees, from Kosovo. Resignation syndrome (RS) renders patients passive, immobile, mute, unable to eat and drink, incontinent and unresponsive to physical stimulus. It is a condition believed to exist only among refugees in Sweden.
The causes are unclear, but most professionals agree that trauma is a primary contributor, alongside a reaction to stress and depression.

First Prize Stories: People
Aisha, age 14, standing for a portrait in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, on Sept. 21, 2017.
Aisha was kidnapped by Boko Haram then assigned a suicide bombing mission. After she was strapped with explosives, she found help instead of blowing herself and others up.

First Prize Singles: Sports
Members of opposing teams, the Up'ards and Down'ards, grapple for the ball during the historic, annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, Britain on Feb. 27, 2017.
The game is played between hundreds of participants in two eight-hour periods on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday (the day preceding and the day marking the start of Christian Lent).
Players score goals by tapping the ball three times on millstones set into pillars three miles apart.


Second Prize Singles: Spot News
People being thrown into the air as a car plows into a group of protesters demonstrating against a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017.


First Prize Stories: Spot News
Las Vegas Police outside the concert grounds after a gunman opened fire on concertgoers at the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017.
Photos: Las Vegas Shooting: Photos Capture Chaos of Concert Massacre


Third Prize Stories: Spot News
Jose Victor Salazar Balza, 28, catching fire after a motorcycle explodes, during a street protest in Caracas, Venezuela on May 3, 2017.