The week around the world in 20 pictures

Tyre Nichols’ funeral in Memphis, the Russian missile attack in Kramatorsk, protests in Peru and the lunar new year in Beijing – the most striking images this week

Main image: People hold signs during a news conference on the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/AP

  • Sloviansk, Ukraine

    Kateryna Avdeyeva mourns as she holds a portrait of her late friend Oleksandr Korovniy, from the Azov battalion, who was killed in action at Bakhmut, as she attends his funeral ceremony in Sloviansk
    Sloviansk, UkraineKateryna Avdeyeva mourns as she holds a portrait of her late friend Oleksandr Korovniy, from the Azov battalion, who was killed in action at Bakhmut, as she attends his funeral ceremony in Sloviansk

  • Raqa, Syria

    Kurdish Asayish security forces stand guard outside a house during a raid against suspected Islamic State group fighters in Raqa. After the jihadists lost their last scraps of territory following a military onslaught backed by the coalition in March 2019, the remaining members of Islamic State in Syria mostly retreated into desert hideouts in the country’s east. They have since used these positions to ambush Kurdish-led forces and Syrian government troops while continuing to mount attacks in Iraq
    Syrian Kurdish Asayish security forces stand guard outside a house during a raid against suspected Islamic State group fighters in Raqa

  • Memphis, Tennessee, US

    Darin Obston Jr prays next to a makeshift memorial near the location where Tyre Nichols was beaten and killed by Memphis police officers. The Memphis police chief disbanded the unit whose officers beat to death Tyre Nichols, citing a ‘cloud of dishonour’ as the city struggled to come to grips with the video showing police pummelling the black motorist. Police director Cerelyn ‘CJ’ Davis said she had listened to Nichols’ relatives, community leaders and uninvolved officers in making the decision
    Darin Obston Jr prays next to a makeshift memorial near the location where Tyre Nichols was beaten and killed by Memphis police officers

  • Bakhmut, Ukraine

    Ukrainian soldiers return from the frontline at Bakhmut in the Donbas region. A fresh Russian assault around the southern Donbas town of Vuhledar, which began towards the end of January, has demonstrated that Moscow’s forces are becoming more capable before a critical – and increasingly uncertain – spring period
    Ukrainian soldiers return from the frontline in Bakhmut

  • Paris, France

    Riot police during clashes at a demonstration in Paris against the government’s reform of the pension system. More than 1.27 million people took part in street demonstrations across France in a second round of coordinated strike action against Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular plan to raise the retirement age to 64
    Riot police during clashes as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration against the government’s reform of the pension system in Paris

  • Lima, Peru

    Protesters continue their demonstration demanding the resignation of Peruvian president Dina Boluarte after six weeks of violent protests that have left 60 dead in different provinces. Boluarte has made a renewed appeal for congress to hold early elections as a way to end weeks of deadly protests, warning that otherwise she would seek constitutional reform to make a vote happen
    Protesters continue their demonstration demanding the resignation of Peruvian president Dina Boluarte after six weeks of violent protests that have left 60 dead in different provinces

  • Bakhmut, Ukraine

    Grandmother Olha hugs her granddaughter Arina, 6, while saying goodbye before her evacuation from the frontline city of Bakhmut
    Grandmother Olha hugs her granddaughter Arina, 6, while saying goodbye before her evacuation from the frontline city of Bakhmut

  • Peshawar, Pakistan

    Rescue workers look for survivors after a suicide bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. The blast struck as 300 worshippers were praying in the mosque, located in the Police Lines area of the city, where the city’s police headquarters and counter-terrorism officers are based. At least 100 people were killed and many more were injured
    Rescue workers look for survivors under a collapsed roof after a suicide blast at a mosque in Peshawar

  • Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

    A woman kneels at a confessional booth set up at Ndolo airport in Kinshasa where worshippers spent the night awaiting Pope Francis’s mass the following morning. Tens of thousands of people cheered, chanted and waved flags as the pope travelled from the airport to the capital in his popemobile. But the mood changed when he gave a speech to dignitaries at the presidential palace, condemning ‘terrible forms of exploitation, unworthy of humanity’ in Congo, where vast mineral wealth has fuelled war, displacement and hunger
    A woman kneels at a confessional booth set up at Ndolo airport in Kinshasa where worshippers spent the night awaiting Pope Francis’ mass the following morning

  • Beijing, China

    A vendor sells sugar-coated Chinese haws on his bicycle as visitors pose for photographs with their haws outside the Drum Tower in Beijing. Chinese people were enjoying the lunar new year following the lifting last month of draconian Covid-19 restrictions. China’s Covid wave was ‘coming to an end’, health officials claimed this week, saying there had been no sign of a new surge from the lunar new year holiday period, despite a big increase in travel compared to last year
    A vendor sells sugar-coated Chinese haws on his bicycle as visitors pose for photographs with their haws outside the Drum Tower in Beijing

  • Kharkiv, Ukraine

    A woman carries her child as they evacuate from a residential building which was hit by a Russian rocket in the city centre of Kharkiv. The Russian shelling killed at least five people and wounded 13 others
    A woman carries her child as they evacuate from a residential building which was hit by a Russian rocket in the city centre of Kharkiv

  • Istanbul, Turkey

    Women chant slogans during a protest outside the Swedish consulate in Istanbul. Turkey reacted with fury at a decision by the Swedish police to allow a protest at which a far-right extremist burned a copy of the Qur’an outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm earlier this month. It has been outraged, too, by a Swedish prosecutor’s decision not to press charges against a pro-Kurdish group that hung an effigy of Erdoğan by its ankles outside Stockholm city court
    Women chant slogans during a protest outside the Swedish consulate in Istanbul

  • Kramatorsk, Ukraine

    Ukrainian military members work alongside rescuers and local residents to clean up rubble during a search-and-rescue operation in Kramatorsk. Russian forces are believed to have hit the building with an Iskander missile. Three people died and eight people were hospitalised with injuries. Russia is planning a big offensive to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine on 24 February, according to Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov
    Ukrainian military members work alongside rescuers and local residents to clean up rubble during a search and rescue operation in Kramatorsk

  • Memphis, Tennessee, US

    Tyre Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells leaves after the funeral service for her son at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis. Thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old black man who died three days after Memphis police officers beat him following a traffic stop last month. Nichols’ beating shocked many in the US after being captured on camera, and triggered yet another bout of soul-searching over racism and police brutality. The five officers involved have been charged with murder and other crimes
    Tyre Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells after the funeral service for her son at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis

  • Memphis, Tennessee, US

    People hold signs during a news conference on the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Demonstrations in the city began shortly after Memphis police released footage of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols. The video showed Memphis officers kicking Nichols repeatedly in the head, punching him in the face, and hitting him with a baton. It also showed officers and medical personnel failing to intervene as Nichols could not sit upright after the assault
    People hold signs during a news conference on the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis

  • Sicuani, Peru

    Women cook for anti-government protesters blocking a highway in Sicuani. Sicuani is at the heart of the seven-week-old insurrection against Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, and the country’s political establishment that began in early December after its leftist president, Pedro Castillo, was unseated and arrested after being accused of trying to stage a coup
    Women cook for anti-government protesters blocking a highway in Sicuani

  • Saltivka, Ukraine

    Animal lovers feed and take care of stray cats, dogs and other animals amid the ongoing Russia invasion in Saltivka. Animals, abandoned by their owners due to the war, are regularly fed and taken care of by local people
    Animal lovers feed and take care of stray cats, dogs and other animals amid the ongoing Russia invasion in Saltivka

  • Masai Mara, Kenya

    A lioness surveys the landscape of the Masai Mara in Kenya from the top of an umbrella acacia thorn tree
    A lioness surveys the landscape of the Masai Mara in Kenya from the top of an umbrella acacia thorn tree

  • A Capela, Spain

    A wild horse, known as a besta in Galician, grazes in a field at Sierra del Forgoselo in A Capela. The besta population, which is on the brink of extinction, grazes freely in these kind of inhospitable habitats of Galicia
    A wild horse, known as Besta in Galician, grazes in a field at Sierra del Forgoselo in A Capela

  • Sloviansk, Ukraine

    Oleksiy Storozh carries a cross to be placed at the grave of his late best friend, Oleksandr Korovniy, a serviceman of the Azov battalion killed in action in Bakhmut, during his funeral procession at a cemetery in Sloviansk
    Oleksiy Storozh, 28, carries a cross to be placed at the grave of his late best friend in Sloviansk
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