Stripes and shades: Africa's top shots

Natasha Booty

BBC News

7 March 2025

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent and beyond:

A woman wears a rainbow-patterned hat and pink-petal sunglasses. — Image caption,
A reveller sees the bright side of life at the Cape Town Pride celebration in South Africa on Saturday.

A girl wears a blue dress and carries a calabash. — Image caption,
Four-year-old Maëlis Kouakou dresses up for Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Girls wearing matching yellow and pink ra-ra skirts stand in a line. — Image caption,
The children's parade gets going at the Luanda Carnival in Angola on Saturday...

A drum major leads a procession of men and women dressed in purple, red and white pagentry. They all dance a wide-stance dance in time. — Image caption,
The theme for this year's carnival is 50 years of Angolan independence.

A man holds a brightly painted wooden mask carved to look like a bull's head. — Image caption,
On Tuesday, people of African descent get ready for the Carnival of Coyolillo in Mexico. Their dances are described as being similar to others found in Mozambique, Mali and Zambia.

A man stands next to a large woven tapestry in white, yellow blue, orange and black horizontal stripes. — Image caption,
On the same day in Ibadan, Nigeria, art historian and designer Olushola Olajobi shows some of his pieces made from waste products.

A woman stands in a courtyard surrounded by dresses she has designed. They are pattered and have mostly neutral tones. — Image caption,
The next day in Lagos, fashion designer Florentina Agu displays some of her creations.

A woman dressed in a security vest and chinos stands at the gates to private residence. — Image caption,
Days earlier in the same city, Omobolaji Oyeleye, who runs a private security company, stands at the gates at one of her work sites in the upmarket Ikoyi suburb.

Men wave Liberia's flag at police, who stand across the road from them. In the middle are yellow taxis. — Image caption,
On Monday, motorcycle taxi drivers in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, protest against the new ban on all motorcycle transport in the city.

Mourners hold Namibian flags during the burial of Sam Nujoma, who became Namibia's first democratically elected president, at Namibia's Heroes' Acre, near the capital Windhoek. — Image caption,
Namibians pay their respects to the country's first president, Sam Nujoma, before his burial on Saturday.

A woman wrapped in the national flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo holds a rosary as she prays at the statue of John Paul II at the Gemelli University Hospital where Pope Francis is hospitalised with pneumonia. — Image caption,
On the same day, a well-wisher draped in the Congolese flag prays for the health of Pope Francis in the Italian capital, Rome.

A Catholic priest applies ash to a man's forehead on the observance of Ash Wednesday at the Holy family Basilica church. — Image caption,
In Kenya's capital, Nairobi, Catholic worshippers mark Ash Wednesday.

A Muslim woman arranges her veil at the Nizamiye Mosque. Outside, the building is decorated in floral blue and purple tiles. — Image caption,
A woman joins evening prayers in South Africa's Gauteng province on Sunday, the first day of the holy month of Ramadan.

Hundreds of people sit down on the floor to eat together at long, identically laid out tablecloths — Image caption,
That evening after sundown at Senegal's famous Massalikoul Djinane mosque, Muslims break their fast at the first iftar dinner of Ramadan.

The silhouettes of people in canoes paddle in the low, orange glow of the rising sun. — Image caption,
At sunrise on Thursday, canoeists glide across the Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg, South Africa.

A small monkey with red and black fur, and big eyes, stares at the camera. — Image caption,
And at The Gambia's Bijilo Forest Park on Wednesday, a curious red colobus monkey peers at the camera.

From the BBC in Africa this week:

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