Africa's year in pictures 2020

A selection of the best photos from across the African continent this year:

In January, locust swarms overwhelm people in parts of East Africa, including these Samburu men in Kenya.

In February, the regional colours of Tigray, in Ethiopia, are seen everywhere in Mekelle city - even on a horse - to mark the 45th anniversary of the launch of armed resistance against the-then Marxist regime. Later in the year, conflict breaks out in the region.

As coronavirus spreads around the world in March, one Ugandan man, Gonzaga Yiga Uganda, takes it upon himself to educate the residents of the capital, Kampala, about measures to curb the spread.

Covid-19 gets more attention as the year goes on. In Kenya a hair style, seen here in a salon in the capital, Nairobi, in April, is even renamed "coronavirus" as it resembles the virus' prickly shape as seen under the microscope.

By May masks become seemingly ubiquitous - and in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, these children crouch in circles drawn at bus stops to encourage social distancing.

In June, protesters gather to demand the ousting of Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. He was overthrown in a coup two months later.

Muslims across Africa celebrate Eid al-Adha in July. For livestock farmers, like this boy in Senegal's capital Dakar, it means washing sheep before taking them to market.

A Tanzanian small-scale miner, who became an overnight millionaire in June for selling two rough Tanzanite stones valued at $3.4m (£2.6m), sells another gem for $2m in August.

A gorilla at the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo breastfeeds her new-born twin babies in September. The endangered mountain gorilla family is one of eight living in the park.

Protests in Lagos, and across Nigeria, against police brutality in October lead to the notorious Sars rogue police unit being disbanded.

In November, tens of thousands of people from Ethiopia's Tigray region flee over the border to Sudan. Here some of them are seen a few weeks later on a hill in Um Raquba refugee camp.

And a wedding party goes to a pier for photographs in the South African city of Durban in December as the authorities ban swimming on public beaches because of a second wave of coronavirus.

Images from AFP, Getty Images and Reuters