Boys pan for gold on a riverside at Iga Barriere, 25 km (15 miles) from Bunia, in the resource-rich Ituri region of eastern Congo February 16, 2009. Ituri is one of many areas of the country to have experienced bitter ethnic conflict between rival tribes in recent years. Massacres have left tens of thousands dead. It is this fighting that led U.S. authorities to take the unprecedented step of naming Congo in section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation act, which says U.S.-listed companies that source gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin from Congo or its neighbours must assure the U.S. stock exchange regulator that their business is not helping fund conflict. (Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

Mave Grace, 11, who had part of her arm chopped off by militiamen when they attacked the village of Tchee, stands with her sister Racahele-Ngabausi, aged two, in an Internally Displaced Camp in Bunia, Ituri province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, April 12, 2018. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A fisherman struggles to push a wheelbarrow full of sharks that have just been dropped off a pirogue on the beach of Songolo, the fishing district of Pointe-Noire in the Republic of the Congo in November 2021. Many artisanal fishing crews on the Congolese coast specialise in shark fishing (Photo by Marco Simoncelli/Al Jazeera)

The golden monkey (Cercopithecus kandti) is a species of Old World monkey found in the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central Africa, including four national parks: Mgahinga, in south-west Uganda; Volcanoes, in north-west Rwanda; and Virunga and Kahuzi-Biéga, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It is restricted to highland forest, especially near bamboo.

A string is used to ensure that the skirts of female members of the honour guard are in the same height from the ground as they prepare for a welcoming ceremony for Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, July 5, 2016. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

A dead red-tailed monkey hangs by its tail above the ground, in order to keep it away from ants, in the forest near the city of Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of the Congo, April 5, 2019. Bushmeat hunters are emptying Central Africa's forests at a high rate, researchers say. A growing appetite for wild meat in cities has ramped up the scale of hunting. Research shows around 6 million tonnes of bushmeat are sourced annually from the Congo Basin, whose forest spans across six countries and is second in size only to the Amazon. (Photo by Thomas Nicolon/Reuters)

British captain A. Gatti and two pygmies with a 500lb gorilla strung from a pole, which the captain shot in the Tchibinda forest in the Lake Kivu region, Democratic Republic of the Congo, circa 1930. (Photo by General Photographic Agency). P.S. All pictures are presented in high resolution.

North Korea has closed its borders in fear of the spread of the Ebola virus. But at a time when the secretive state was still welcoming tourists, former aid worker Andrew Macleod made the journey to the repressive nation. Andrew's holiday snaps and camera footage provide a unique insight into the reclusive country, where he came across deserted motorways, metro stations plastered with propaganda and attractive border guards. Here: a female traffic police officer in the snow in February 2013, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Photo by Andrew Macleod/Barcroft Media)