“We might never know who this woman is”…

Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda has won the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award for an image of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen.

Winners of the World Press Photo contest, which recognizes excellence in photography, were released Friday, February 10, 2012. The winners were selected from more than 100,000 entries submitted by more than 5,200 photographers. The annual World Press Photo Contest is universally recognized as the world’s leading international contest for photojournalists, setting the standard for the profession.

The picture shows a woman holding a wounded relative in her arms, inside a mosque used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, during clashes in Sanaa, Yemen on 15 October 2011. Samuel Aranda was working in Yemen on assignment for The New York Times.

Comments on the winning photo by the jury:

Koyo Kouoh: “It is a photo that speaks for the entire region. It stands for Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, for all that happened in the Arab Spring. But it shows a private, intimate side of what went on. And it shows the role that women played, not only as care-givers, but as active people in the movement.”

Nina Berman: “In the Western media, we seldom see veiled women in this way, at such an intimate moment. It is as if all of the events of the Arab Spring resulted in this single moment – in moments like this.”

Aidan Sullivan: “The winning photo shows a poignant, compassionate moment, the human consequence of an enormous event, an event that is still going on. We might never know who this woman is, cradling an injured relative, but together they become a living image of the courage of ordinary people that helped create an important chapter in the history of the Middle East.”

Manoocher Deghati: “The photo is the result of a very human moment, but it also reminds us of something important, that women played a crucial part in this revolution. It is easy to portray the aggressiveness of situations like these. This image shows the tenderness that can exist within all the aggression. The violence is still there, but it shows another side.”

The international jury of the 54th annual World Press Photo Contest selected a picture by Jodi Bieber from South Africa as the World Press Photo of the Year 2010.

The portrait of Bibi Aisha was also awarded First prize in the category Portraits Singles in this year’s contest. It was shot for Time and was featured on the cover of the 9 August issue of the magazine.

Bibi Aisha, 18, was disfigured as retribution for fleeing her husband’s house in Oruzgan province, in the center of Afghanistan. At the age of 12, Aisha and her younger sister had been given to the family of a Taliban fighter under a Pashtun tribal custom for settling disputes. When she reached puberty she was married to him, but she later returned to her parents’ home, complaining of violent treatment by her in-laws. Men arrived there one night demanding that she be handed over to be punished for running away.