World Press Photo 2005

The international jury of the 49th annual World Press Photo contest selected a color image of the Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly of Reuters as World Press Photo of the Year 2005. The picture shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year-old child pressed against the lips of his mother at an emergency feeding clinic in Niger. A devastating swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the African state. The picture was taken in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on 1 August 2005.

World Press Photo jury chairman James Colton described the winning image: "This picture has haunted me ever since I first saw it two weeks ago. It has stayed in my head, even after seeing all the thousands of others during the competition. This image has everything - beauty, horror and despair. It is simple, elegant and moving."