This 2017 UNICEF photo shows the distress war and flight leave in a child’s eyes. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Muhammed Muheisen photographed five-year-old Zahra from Syria in a refugee camp in the Mafraq suburb of Jordan. In Zahra’s face, the viewer encounters the silent suffering of millions of children in the world’s crisis countries.

The second and third prizes in UNICEF Germany’s international photo competition document the fate of mothers and children from the Rohingya ethnic minority who had to flee violence in their homeland of Myanmar. Bangladeshi-born photographer K.M. Asad captures the moment when a mother carries her baby through the sea to land. Kevin Frayer (Canada) portrays the desperation of a boy in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, as he climbs onto a truck carrying relief supplies.

“Children’s eyes tell the truth,” explained Elke Büdenbender, patron of UNICEF Germany, at the award ceremony in Berlin. “The photo of little Zahra tells a powerful story of the horror and desolation she had to experience in her young life. You have to keep looking at that face. It represents the fate of millions of children.”

“Renowned photographers from all over the world have submitted more than 100 great reports from the hotspots of the world, but also subtle photographic essays about sensitivities and distortions in the affluent countries. They open up a deep, aesthetically valuable and complex insight into the conditions and relationships of our earth,” said the chairman of the jury, Prof. Klaus Honnef.

The winning picture: Zahra’s face © Muhammed Muheisen, Jordan (AP/dpa)