Smoke plumes rise from Mount Etna, one of the most active volcanoes in the world in Sicily, Italy on June 28, 2016. (Photo by Etna Walk/Rex Feature/Shutterstock)

From house breaking in Johannesburg to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi to rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year. Here: Protesters drag a female police officer accused of shooting a protester in the Buterere neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi, May 12, 2015. Goran Tomasevic: Protesters started throwing stones at a group of police, who then started to run away. The policewoman in the photo, Medikintos Inabeza, 33, got left behind and then some protesters started to push her, saying that she had shot a female protestor in the stomach with an AK47 rifle. I didn't see anything of that. There were 5 or 10 protesters pushing the policewoman at first, then others came and joined in. Up to 20 or 30 protesters were surrounding her at one point. The protesters kicked and beat her very badly; I also saw a couple of knives. I thought they were going to kill her... (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A vendor (C) cuts slaughtered dogs for sale at his roadside stall in Duong Noi village, outside Hanoi December 16, 2011. While animal rights activists have condemned eating dog meat as cruel treatment of the animals, it is still an accepted popular delicacy for some Vietnamese, as well in some other Asian countries. Duong Noi is well-known as a dog-meat village, where hundreds of dogs are killed each day for sale as popular traditional food. Dog-eating as a custom is rooted in Vietnam and was developed as a result of poverty. One kilogram of dog meat costs about 130,000 dongs ($6.2). (Photo by Reuters/Kham)

An actor performs during the show “Paris de Nuit” in Santiago, Chile, 20 September 2016. The show is a combination of cabaret and circus, produced by the Recirquel Contemporary Circus Company from Budapest, and will be performed at the Mapocho Cultural station from 20 to 25 September. (Photo by Mario Ruiz/EPA)

Geordie Shore babe Chantelle Connelly enjoys a wild night out in Benidorm, Spain on September 20, 2016 which ended at a strip club with a group of girls for her sisters birthday. (Photo by Danny Ryan/iCelebTV.com)

Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide by Sean Gallagher, Tuvalu. Changing environments prize: Fallen trees lie on a beach as the waves from the Funafuti lagoon in Tuvalu lap around them. Land erosion has always been a problem for the South Pacific country but problems are intensifying as sea levels rise. Rising seas are on the verge of completely submerging the tiny archipelago’s islands. (Photo by Sean Gallagher/CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year 2019)

These images of abandoned hospitals across Italy are not for the faint-hearted. Both of the hospitals featured in the photographs are Italian asylums – known as manicomios – that were used as mental hospitals. Shut down by law in 1978, the derelict buildings are visibly overgrown and make for very eerie portraits. Photographer Thomas Windisch, 32, of Graz, Austria, said the asylums, located in top-secret spots, can get very creepy when there aren't many people there with him. Here: a hallway within an abandoned hospital. (Photo by Thomas Windisch/Caters News)