The UNICEF Photo of the Year Award is given by UNICEF Germany to photographs and photo series that “best depict the personality and living conditions of children worldwide in an outstanding manner”. Since 2000, the annual award has been given exclusively to professional photographers who have been recommended to UNICEF by internationally renowned photography experts. An independent jury selects the winner.
In December 2026, the prize was awarded ex aequo to two photographs for the first time. The winners were Avishag Shaar-Yashuv from Israel and Samar Abu Elouf from Palestine. Shaar-Yashuv portrayed children in a hotel who had survived the October 7 attacks, in 2023, including the winning picture of an eight-year-old boy, Stav. Abu Elouf, who works for the New York Times, portrayed the Palestinian siblings Darren (11 years old) and Kinan (5 years old) in a hospital in Qatar. Both were the only survivors of their family of Israeli air force bombings of residential areas in Gaza.
Winners
2000: „Rwanda: Country of the lost children“; Photographer: Matias Costa 2001: „Costa Rica: Siviani on the Sofa“; Photographer: Meredith Davenport 2002: „Liberia/Sierra Leone: Forgotten Refugees of the World“; Photographer: Jan Grarup 2003: „Honduras: Bound to El Norte“; Photographer: Don Bartletti 2004: „Sudan: Darfur in flame“; Photographer: Marcus Blaesdale 2005: „Ukraine: Street children in Odessa“; Photographer: David Gillanders 2006: „Pakistan: The Kashmir Earthquake“; Photographer: Jan Grarup 2007: „Afghanistan: Child brides“; Photographer: Stephanie Sinclair 2008: „Haiti: Surviving in Haiti“; Photographer: Alice Smeets 2009: „Tanzania: Deadly superstition“; Photographer: Johan Bävman 2010: „Vietnam: The legacy of war“; Photographer: Ed Kashi 2011: „Ghana: Waste export to Africa“; Photographer: Kai Löffelbein 2012: „Syria: Children between the lines“; Photographer: Alessio Romenzi 2013: „Syria: Syria's “forgotten” child victims“; Photographer: Niclas Hammarström 2014: „Philippines: Wanna have love!?“; Photographer: Insa Hagemann, Stefan Finger 2015: „Greece/North Macedonia: Utter despair“; Photographer: Georgi Licovski 2016: „Iran: Defending the right to smile“; Photographer: Arez Ghaderi 2017: „Syria: The face of a tormented childhood“; Photographer: Muhammed Muheisen 2018: „Togo: Every child matters“; Photographer: Antonio Aragón Renuncio 2019: „Philippines: Garbage, the Children and Death“; Photographer: Hartmut Schwarzbach 2020: „Greece: The flames of misery“; Photographer: Angelos Tzortzinis 2021: „India: Drowned hopes“; Photographer: Supratim Bhattacharjee 2022: „Tigray, Ethiopia: Taking Refuge in Books“; Photographer: Eduardo Soteras 2023: „Ukraine: Under the dark clouds of war“; Photographer: Patryk Jaracz 2024: ex aequo „Israel: The trauma of little Stav“; Photographer: Avishag Shaar-Yashuv „Palestine: the drama of Dareen and Kinan (for The New York Times)“; Photographer: Samar Abu Elouf
References