A British photographer has won an international contest to find Unicef Photo of the Year.
David Gillanders triumphed with a photograph of a ?street child?, an image described by organisers as giving ?a face to the HIV/AIDS catastrophe in Eastern Europe?.
The image shows a 13-year-old girl called Yana who died at Christmas 2004, addicted to drugs and infected with the HIV virus in the Ukranian city of Odessa.
Gillanders was awarded a photo assignment for the magazine GEO, along with camera equipment.
?Yana hardly said a word but she cried a lot,? said Gillanders, adding: ?On the photo she still holds the t-shirt she wiped away her tears with.?
Yana had been an orphan since the age of eight. She had set out for Odessa with other homeless children after her mother died in a Moldovan prison. Since her death three more children from her group have died.
There are believed to be more than 100,000 street children in the former Soviet Union who move from town to town in small groups ? mostly as stowaways on goods trains.
Brazilian Mauricio Lima scooped second place with a picture of a child who suffered severe burns during the war against Iraq. Meanwhile, Frida Hedberg, a photographer from Sweden won third place.
The aim of the competition is to highlight the ?worldwide situation of children in an outstanding way?.
Picture credit: David Gillanders
