The National Press Photographers Association announced this week the results for its annual Best of Photojournalism contest and several AP photographers were awarded prizes.
The winning images are featured below.
Oded Balilty | Pictorial: 1st Place
Muhammed Muheisen | Portrait Series: 3rd Place
For more than three decades, Pakistan has been home to one of the world’s largest refugee communities: hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have fled the repeated wars and fighting their country has undergone.
In this Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee girl, laiba Hazrat, 6, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee boy, Hayat Khan, 8, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee girl, Gul Bibi Shamra, 3, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee boy, Abdulrahman Bahadir, 13, poses for a picture, in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee girl, Robina Haseeb, 5, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee boy, Awal Gul, 12, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee girl, Naseebah Zarghoul, 6, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014, photo, Afghan refugee boy, Waheed Wazir, 6, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee girl, Zarlakhta Nawab, 6, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
In this Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee boy, Noorkhan Zahir, 6, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Jerome Delay | International News Single: Honorable Mention
Hussein Malla | International News Single: Honorable Mention
Sergei Grits | General News Single: Honorable Mention
Daniel Ochoa de Olza | Sports Feature Single: Honorable Mention
Rodrigo Abd | Environmental Picture Story: Honorable Mention
A new threat now looms for the estimated 20,000 wildcat miners who toil in a huge scar of denuded rainforest known as La Pampa, an area nearly three times the size of Washington, D.C. Peru’s government declared all informal mining illegal on April 19, 2014, and began a crackdown.
A woman throws a rock and a bag at riot policemen who block her way home in Huepetuhe district in Peru’s Madre de Dios region in Peru, Monday, April 28, 2014. Soldiers, police and marines have begun destroying illegal gold mining machinery in Peru’s southeastern jungle region of Madre de Dios, enforcing a ban on illegal mining in the Huepetuhe district. Before the deadline, miners clashed with police while intermittently blocking traffic on the Interoceanic Highway that links the Pacific with Brazil. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this May 5, 2014 photo, miners known as “Maraqueros” ready a rustic type of hydraulic jet known locally as a “Chupadera,” after hauling the device about 16-meters deep into a crater at a gold mine process in La Pampa in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this Wednesday, April 30, 2014 photo, gasoline used for illegal mining burns as it is destroyed by authorities in the Huepetuhe district of Peru’s Madre de Dios region. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Manuel Espinosa holds his four-month-old son, Edward, brought to him by his wife as he takes a break from mining gold in La Pampa, Peru in the Madre de Dios region on Friday, May 2, 2014. Madre de Dios state has an estimated 40,000 illegal miners, most centered near the commercially vital Interoceanic Highway that links the Pacific Ocean with Brazil. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this Nov. 12, 2014 photo, a column of policemen occupy a gold mining camp as part of an operation to eradicate illegal mining in the area known as La Pampa, in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. Peru’s anti-illegal mining czar, retired army Gen. Augusto Soto, marched the men to the wasteland known as La Pampa, where 50,000 hectares of rainforest have been obliterated in the past six years. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Miners leave the site where they lived and worked after police destroyed their illegal mining operation in La Pampa in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, Friday, May 16, 2014. Madre de Dios state has an estimated 40,000 illegal miners, most of whom are poor migrants from the Andean highlands. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this May 3, 2014 photo, a jet stream of water passes above two miners known as “Maraqueros” who remove stones and chunks of tree trunks that have been released with the aid of a rustic type of hydraulic jet known locally as a “Chupadera,” in La Pampa in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. The Chupadera aims powerful jet streams of water at earth walls, releasing the soils that hold the sought after flecks of gold. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this Nov. 11, 2014 aerial photo, a deforested area is shown dotted with blue tarps, marking the area where miners reside, and craters filled with water, caused by illegal gold mining activities, in La Pampa, in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. In addition to contributing to deforestation, the illegal alluvial gold mining contaminates the jungle with tons of mercury. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this May 3, 2014 photo, Prisaida, 2, sits in the shallow waters of a polluted lagoon as her parents mine for gold nearby, in La Pampa in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. The lagoon emerged as a result of miners bombarding the earth with jet streams of water in search of gold. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this May 3, 2014 photo, a rope hangs around the trunk of a tree at a illegal gold mining process in La Pampa in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. An estimated 20,000 miners toil in this malarial expanse of denuded rainforest known as La Pampa. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this May 3, 2014 photo, a miner roughly estimates his handful of gold he mined, after working for over 24-hours, in La Pampa in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
In this May 20, 2014 photo, a golden statue of a miner holding a shovel and plate stands in the empty central square of Huepetuhe in the Madre de Dios region of Peru. Thousands of people have left the Peruvian Amazon boomtown since the government halted gasoline shipments in and sent troops to destroy heavy machinery used in mining that it deemed illegal. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
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