A Devastating Moment of Family Separated by ICE Wins World Press Photo of the Year 2026

World Press Photo 2026 Photo of the Year has been announced, and Carol Guzy’s Separated by ICE has been awarded the winner. The image is as devastating as it is necessary, showing a moment that no photo should have to capture, yet demands to be seen.

Guzy took the photo on August 26, 2025, inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City. It’s one of the few U.S. federal buildings where photographers were granted access. What they documented was this: Luis, an Ecuadorian migrant with no criminal record, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents following an immigration court hearing. His wife, Cocha, stands with their three children, aged seven, 13, and 15. They are inconsolable. Luis was the household’s sole provider. Now they face immediate financial hardship and profound emotional trauma.

What Guzy has documented is a government policy being applied systematically to people who arrived for their court hearings in good faith, who followed the rules they were given, and who are now separated.

“This award highlights the critical importance of the story worldwide,” Guzy commented. “We bear witness to the suffering of countless families, but also to their grace and resilience that transcends adversity that has been quite humbling. The courage to open up their lives to our cameras, allowed us to tell their stories. And certainly this award belongs to them, not me.”

Guzy’s work is part of a larger series titled ICE Arrests at New York Court, which won in the Stories category of the North and Central America region at this year’s contest.

The Finalists

Two other images were selected as finalists for the top prize.

Aid Emergency in Gaza by Saber Nuraldin shows Palestinians climbing onto an aid truck as it enters the Gaza Strip via the Zikim Crossing. They were attempting to get flour during what the Israeli military called a “tactical suspension” in operations.

Nuraldin took the photo on July 27, 2025, rendering visible the scale and urgency of famine. In 2025, famine took hold amid what a UN Human Rights Commission inquiry has concluded is a genocide in Gaza. Israeli authorities imposed a complete aid blockade in March. The UN reports that between late May and early October, at least 2,435 Palestinians seeking food were killed at or near aid distribution sites.

The jury noted that the straightforward composition forces the viewer to pause and offers visual evidence of both famine and the destruction surrounding the scene.

The Trials of the Achi Women by Victor J. Blue also found its place among the finalists. It documents Indigenous Maya Achi women in Guatemala standing outside a court.

For four decades, these women lived in the same communities as the men who had raped them. Guatemala’s civil war led to the genocide of thousands of Maya Achi people by the military and state-backed paramilitary forces, who used sexual violence as a systematic weapon to subjugate Indigenous communities.

In 2011, 36 women broke their silence, launching and winning a 14-year legal battle against their abusers. This photograph captures the moment after three former civil defense patrollers were sentenced to 40 years in prison for rape and crimes against humanity.

The jury praised the photograph’s classical restraint, which emphasizes the women’s dignity and authority, deliberately countering historical visual narratives that frame survivors of sexual violence as powerless. Instead, it documents a moment of collective strength.

The winner and the two finalists tell stories about power, justice, and survival. They are not comfortable to look at, but they demand to be seen. They ask us not to look away.

Kira Pollack, the 2026 global jury chair, commented:

“Photojournalism has never been easy work. It has never been lucrative, or safe, or guaranteed an audience. And yet photographers go. To the courthouses and the conflict zones, to the quiet corners of the world where history is being made without witnesses. They go because they believe that seeing matters. That evidence matters.”

Carol Guzy receives 10,000 euros and Fujifilm gear worth over 14,000 euros. The award is announced ahead of the World Press Photo exhibition opening at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on April 24.

To view all winning images and series, visit World Press Photo’s website.

---