A black-and-white image of a boy clutching his dead father's trousers after an earthquake in Iran has won the World Press Photo of the Year award.
It was taken by Los Angeles-based Armenian photographer Mr Eric Grigorian.
The picture shows the boy squatting in the dirt, weeping near soldiers digging fresh graves for some of the 500 victims of the June 23rd earthquake in the northwestern Qazvin province.
Mr Grigorian (33) took the photo while on assignment for the New York-based agency Polaris Images. He will receive the award and a cash price of €11,000 in Amsterdam on April 27th.
The World Press Photo competition had a record 53,597 entries for the 2002 prize, taken by 3,913 professional photographers from 118 countries. Prizes were given to 55 photographers whose work was entered into 18 categories.
Leading the "spot news singles" category was Japan's Mr Tomohisa Kato of Kyodo News with his picture of a North Korean asylum seeker at the gates of the Japanese Consulate in China.
In general news singles, Mr Antonin Kratochvil of the Czech Republic took first prize for a photograph of the Myanmar prison for the New York Times Magazine.
Mr Georges Gobet of the Agence France-Presse news agency won in the spot news story category for a story from the Ivory Coast.
For general news stories, Danish photographer Mr Jan Dago won first prize for Magnum Photos/Alexia Foundation for his work from Sierra Leone.
An exhibition of the winning photographs tours the world and will be in Ireland from June 20th-July 13th in the Eyre Square Center, Galway.
AP