2015: The Year In Photos
This was the year that terrorism and refugees dominated global headlines more than ever. Militants escalated their attacks from Syria to the streets of Paris, while over a million people fleeing conflicts poured into Europe. Here are some of the images which captured the top stories of 2015.
1
A portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin is on display at a cafe in the town of Dombai on Mount Mussa-Achitara in southern Russia, on January 2, 2015. (Reuters/Eduard Korniyenko)
2
People leave the scene of a suicide bomb attack that targeted a vehicle of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan in Kabul, January 5, 2015. (epa/Jawad Jalali).
3
A Syrian refugee girl stands behind a door at a makeshift settlement in the village of Ketermaya, south of Beirut, Lebanon, January 8, 2015. Snowfall and gales in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley destroyed some refugee tents. (Reuters/Ali Hashisho)
4
People gather in Paris for a march against terrorism on January 11, 2015. Hundreds of thousands of people and more than 40 world leaders attended the march honoring the 17 victims killed in three days of terror which started when gunmen invaded the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. (epa/Frederic Von Erichsen)
5
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community wait for bread to bake at Dawodiya camp for internally displaced people in the Kurdish city of Dohuk on January 14, 2015. The Yazidis fled violence between Islamic State jihadists and Peshmerga fighters in the northern town of Sinjar in Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdistan region. Tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority were trapped by IS on Mount Sinjar for days in the searing August heat in a first siege by IS that sparked fears of genocide. (AFP/Safin Hamed)
6
Kindergarten Number 9, after it was shelled in Debaltsevo, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, on January 22, 2015. (epa/Anastasia Vlasova)
7
Young Iranian Zoroastrians dance in traditional dresses during a ceremony called 'Sade' which comes 50 days before the Iranian New Year. The picture was taken in the Markar garden east of the capital Tehran, Iran, on January 30, 2015. (epa/Abedin Taherkenareh)
8
A serviceman from the volunteer battalion 'Aydar' throws a signboard over the gates, as burning tires are extinguished during a protest rally in front of Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in Kyiv, on February 2, 2015. (epa/Roman Pilipey)
9
Afghan refugees watch a live broadcast of the Cricket World Cup match between Afghanistan and Bangladesh at a market in Peshawar, Pakistan on February 18, 2015. (AFP/A Majeed)
10
People march in a funeral procession in memory of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, March 1, 2015. Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin in February. He was 55 years old. (RFE/RL, Mikhail Sokolov)
11
Shi'ite fighters launch a rocket during clashes with Islamic State militants on the outskirts of al-Alam, Iraq, on March 8, 2015. (Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani)
12
Kazakhs herd their sheep in heavy snowfall in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China, on March 15, 2015. (Reuters/China Daily)
13
Afghan women's rights activists carry the coffin of Farkhunda, an Afghan woman beaten to death and set alight, during her burial ceremony in Kabul, on March 22, 2015. (Reuters/Mohammad Ismail)
14
A Kurdish Syrian woman walks with her child past the ruins of the town of Kobani, Syria, March 25, 2015. A six-month siege of the town by the Islamic State militant group was ended in March by Kurdish and allied forces. (AFP/Yasin Asgul)
15
People live in squalid conditions in the town of Debaltseve, in eastern Ukraine, on April 9, 2015. The town fell to a Russian-backed separatist assault shortly after the Minsk cease-fire agreements were signed in February. (RFE/RL, Petr Shelomovskiy)
16
Red Star Belgrade fans cheer amid smoke bombs during their Serbian Superliga soccer match against Partizan Belgrade in Belgrade, April 25, 2015. The two clubs are traditionally fierce rivals. (Reuters/Mark Djurica)
17
Ropes weighed down with water bottles are used to keep the legs of a girl in traction after she was injured in an earthquake. The picture was taken at a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, on April 29, 2015. (Reuters/Danish Siddiqui)
18
A boy sits close to TV sets at a shop during a broadcast of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's annual state of the nation address, in Minsk, on April 29, 2015 (AFP/Sergei Gapon)
19
Four-year-old Ghazal (L) runs away with seven-year-old Judy, who is carrying 8-month-old Suhair, after the shelling of a Red Crescent convoy in Damascus, Syria, on May 6, 2015. (Reuters//Bassam Khabieh)
20
Fans of Iran's Persepolis soccer club cheer on their team during their AFC Champions League match against Saudi's Al-Hilal club at the Azadi stadium in Tehran, on May 19, 2015. (AFP/Atta Kenare)
21
A saiga antelope with a baby grazes next to the carcasses of dead antelope in a field in the Kostanay region, of Kazakhstan on May 20, 2015. (Reuters)
22
People gather for the inauguration of a monument to Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on May 25, 2015. (Reuters/Marat Gurt)
23
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama during the G7 Summit outside Elmau Castle in Germany, on June 8, 2015. (Reuters/Michael Kappeler)
24
Female Peshmerga fighters take a selfie in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region, on June 9, 2015. Many Kurdish women joined in the fight against Islamic State militants in Kurdistan. (AFP/Safin Hamed)
25
A woman and child are pictured on June 10, 2015 at the Potocari memorial for victims of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, the United Nations set aside Srebrenica as a safe haven for civilians. But on July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb troops overran the town and killed about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the ensuing days. (RFE/RL, Midhat Poturovic)