Image of crying children in migrant crisis wins UNICEF photo of the year

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) photo of the year sheds light on the terror that can befall migrant children on their journey to Western European countries.

European Pressphoto Agency photographer Georgi Licovski won the annual contest on Dec. 17, for a shot he took in August on the border between Greece and Macedonia.

In the photo, two children cry as a group of migrants try to “break through” a line of Macedonian special police forces, according to the EPA.

“The situation was so horrible that for the first time in my life I saw my colleagues cry, shaken by what’s going on in front of their eyes,” Licovski wrote in an EPA blog post.

Some of the refugees sent women and children to the front of the line in hopes the Macedonian police would let them through, UNICEF said in a statement. In the confusion of the situation, some of the children were separated from their parents, Licovski said.

One-quarter of the 730,000 refugees that have made there way into Europe through the Balkan states between January and November of 2015 are children, according to UNICEF.

Licovski said he has struggled with the question of whether the photos and images of migrant and police clashes truly represent the situation.

“While taking pictures of these incidents, I am not sure how much we captured the real situation in the field,” Licovski said. “Are the police being brutal or are the migrants just creating a scene that makes it look that way?”

He said the greatest struggle a photographer has is trying to “capture” a scene in a way that does not manipulate the facts.

Seventy-five photographers from 30 countries submitted photographs to the international competition, according to EPA.

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