Water fights and nimble rams: Africa’s top shots
Written by BBC on September 5, 2025

Monday heralds the start of a new academic year for these junior school pupils in Goma, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that has been under the rule of Rwandan-back M23 rebels since January.

Gerald Anderson/Anadolu/Getty Images Animals are taken to a watering trough on Friday in the remote Kenyan town of Bisil in Kajiado county, where the community is struggling to cope with a drought.

Abdel Majid Bziouat/AFP/Getty Images On the same day, beekeepers use smoke to calm bees as they inspect hives on the slopes of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains…

Abdel Majid Bziouat/AFP/Getty Images Nearby in the area of Aït Attou Moussa on Saturday, a shepherd herds his flock up a rocky mountainside.

Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters On Sunday, the Presidential Orchestra of Burkina Faso performs at the closing ceremony of Russia’s international military music festival in Moscow’s Red Square.

Patrick Meinhardt/AFP/Getty Images In Guinea’s capital, Conakry, a man goes for a run on Saturday along a beach where loads of washed up rubbish can be seen…

Patrick Meinhardt/AFP/Getty Images The next day, a Catholic altar boy in the mainly Muslim country wields an incense burner as he leads a procession into Sunday Mass in Conakry.

Feisal Omar/Reuters On Tuesday, a herder stands with his camels in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, where – in observance of a Muslim tradition – 1,200 of the animals were reportedly due to be slaughtered to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday this week.

Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images/Getty Images In a Johannesburg court in South Africa on Monday, the mother of a six-year-old girl who was kidnapped, raped and murdered last year breaks down as the killer is sentenced to two life terms…

Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images And at a funeral on Saturday, children wear shirts with photos of Esmine Francke, a 12-year-old girl killed in the crossfire of a gang fight on the outskirts of Cape Town in South Africa.

KB Mpofu/Reuters On the same day in neighbouring Zimbabwe, the city of Bulawayo hosts the I Wear My Culture fashion show – in which 16 young designers show off their creations. These models wear outfits from the collection for Zimbabwe’s Ndebele people…

KB Mpofu/Reuters This dress is from a collection representing the Venda people, who are from South Africa’s Limpopo province that borders Zimbabwe.

Adekunle Ajayi/NurPhoto/Getty Images And two female content creators are seen at work on Sunday at a stadium in Lagos on the second weekend of this season’s Nigeria Premier Football League.