American photographer Anthony Suau won the top prize at the annual competition with his black-and-white picture showing a police officer enforcing eviction of a house in the United States after the residents failed to pay the mortgage.

Photo taken by Anthony Suau for Time on March 26, 2008 shows "Following eviction, Detective Robert Kole must ensure residents have moved out of their home, Cleveland, Ohio". The results of the 52nd annual World Press Photo Contest (WPP) were announced in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Feb. 13, 2009. The black-and-white image won the World Press Photo of the Year 2008 award. [Xinhua/WPP/Anthony Suau, for Time]

His picture, part of a story commissioned by Time magazine, shows an armed officer moving through the home in Cleveland, Ohio, following the eviction. The officer's intense posture looked like he was in an armed conflict rather than a civil incident.

The picture was chosen as World Press Photo of the Year because of its strength in showing the opposites, jury chair Mary Anne Golon said.

"It looks like a classic conflict photograph, but it is simply the eviction of people from a house following foreclosure. Now war in its classic sense is coming into people's houses because they can't pay their mortgages," Golon said.

This year, a record 5,508 photographers from 124 countries and regions submitted more than 96,000 images in the contest.

The 13-member jury awarded prizes in 10 theme categories to 63 photographers of 27 nationalities.

The annual contest, which started in 1955, has been traditionally dominated by Western photographers. However in recent years participants from developing countries have been growing rapidly.

Chinese photographers have won a number of prizes in the past years, including the first prize in Nature singles last year. This year a record 490 Chinese photographers competed in the contest.

The awards ceremony will be held in Amsterdam on May 2. Top prize winner Suau will get a cash prize of 10,000 euro and a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera.