Amsterdam, Netherlands ? Danish photographer Erik Refner won the prestigious World Press Photo of The Year award Friday with a picture of an Afghan refugee’s body being prepared for a funeral.

Photographs of the World Trade Center tragedy and the ensuing conflict in Afghanistan dominated the news categories, but the winning image of the Afghan child was shot three months before the world’s attention turned to that troubled area.

Danish photographer Erik Refner holds up a copy of the photo that has been named World Press Photo of the Year 2001. The photo shows the body of an Afghan refugee boy being prepared for his funeral.

Refner, 31, works for the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende. A photographer from the same newspaper won the award in 2000.

“At first I thought I had won a category but I had (the jury) repeat it a few times to make it clear that I had won the top prize,” Refner said of the prize, which is worth $8,700.

The black-and-white image depicts six arms and hands, extending from all sides of the frame, drawing a white blanket over the body of a 1-year-old.

The picture also was part of a story package on Afghan refugees awarded second prize in the category People in the News.

In the People in the News category for a single photo, Gulnara Samoilova of The Associated Press won for her picture of survivors of the World Trade Center collapse.

The award for the top spot news photo went to Luc Delahaye for an image in Newsweek of opposition Northern Alliance troops being ambushed by retreating Taliban forces.

For general news, the prize went to Carlos Barria Moraga, of Argentina’s La Nacion, for a picture of a woman caught in a December protest in Buenos Aires.