Yannis Behrakis, photographer of the year, struggled with 'emotional involvement'

Reuters photo-journalist Yannis Behrakis (photo), who has been winning awards for his work for more than a decade, is The Guardian’s photographer of the year in recognition of his coverage of two of 2015’s biggest stories - the refugee crisis and the financial implosion in his home country Greece.

“I have been covering refugees and migrants for over 25 years, but this year has been different: migrants are arriving in my homeland," he said. "A couple of boats came every night. Everybody aboard was scared because they didn’t know how the police and locals would react. Small dinghies kept on coming, even when the weather was rough. The Turkish coast is just 4-5 km away."

The least challenging part of the year was taking pictures. The biggest struggle was the emotional involvement.

“The emotional impact of covering the refugee crisis is devastating. I have suffered from insomnia and nightmares, and felt guilty many times for not being able to do more. I have refugee blood myself - and I am a father.”

Born in 1960 in Athens, Behrakis said: “It’s very hard working on a big story in your home country... the emotional pressure is enormous when you see your friends and family suffer.”

He started working for Reuters in 1987 and the following year was offered a staff job based in Athens. His first foreign assignment was to Libya in 1989. Since then he has covered Iran, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the first and second Gulf wars, the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, earthquakes in Kashmir, Turkey, Greece and Iran as well as four Summer Olympics and many other international sports events.

In 2000 Behrakis survived an ambush in Sierra Leone in which correspondent Kurt Schork and cameraman Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora of Associated Press Television were killed.

Currently chief photographer in Greece, he added: “I have been covering Greece’s financial crisis non-stop since 2010. In my 28-year career as a Reuters photojournalist the idea of covering a catastrophe in my own country had always been a nightmare in my mind. I did my best to stay impartial while covering a financial and political crisis that seemed unthinkable until this year.”

CLICK to see some of Yannis Behrakis’s 2015 photos selected by The Guardian ■