Children the focus in UNICEF's 'Photo of the Year'

The children's aid organization UNICEF announced Tuesday in Berlin that a photograph taken by Arez Ghaderi of a young girl atop a trash heap is its Photograph of the Year" for 2016.

Taken in Iran, the snapshot of a young girl smiling while playing on a mountain of garbage is said to symbolize the lightheartedness that children can display even when facing difficult living circumstances. The picture was taken in Razavi-Khorasan, a province on the border to Afghanistan, at an encampment for people of the Balochi tribe.

The second place award went to photojournalist Ali Nouraldin, who lives in Cologne, Germany. He captured the excitement palpable on children's faces as they awaited a film screening in a makeshift cinema set up in the Greek refugee camp of Idomeni.

For his photograph of two girls in front of a bullet-ridden wall in the Syrian city of Duma, near Damascus, Syrian photographer Mohammed Badra received third prize.

ct/kbm (with dpa)