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)

An aerial view of open pits of CODELCO's Andina (L) and Anglo American's Los Bronces copper mines with Olivares glaciers in the background (top L) at Los Andes Mountain range, near Santiago city, November 17, 2014. The rock glaciers of the Chilean central zone, a huge source of water for the basins of the capital, are said to be threatened by the environmental impacts of hydroelectric and mining projects, according to environmental activists Greenpeace. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

Paris authorities began draining the Canal Saint-Martin, a popular waterway that attracts tourists and revelers in the French capital's trendy northeastern 10th arrondissement, for the first time in 14 years, Paris, January 5, 2016. (Photo by Christophe Geyres/SIPA Press/Newscom)

A combination picture shows Aleppo's Umayyad mosque, Syria, before it was damaged on March 12, 2009 (top) and after it was damaged (bottom) December 13, 2016. (Photo by Omar Sanadiki/Reuters)

NASA space shuttle Atlantis is prepared on the Vehicle Assembly Building floor at the Kennedy Space Center May 18, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The space shuttle program ends with Atlantis mission STS-135 scheduled for early July. Space shuttle Atlantis will carry the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the International Space Station. Atlantis also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module. (Photo by Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)

In this Monday, January 30, 2017 photo, wildfires straddle Chile's Dichato community. Strong winds are continuing to stoke the flames of raging wildfires in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 800 families in the coastal town of Dichato. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

This April 9, 2016 photo provided by Bertrand Piccard via Global Newsroom shows Piccard taking a selfie on board Solar Impulse 2 during a test flight over the Pacific Ocean. The solar-powered airplane on an around-the-world journey had traveled 80 percent of the way from Hawaii to California by Saturday, April 23. The aircraft's destination on this leg of the journey is Mountain View, Calif., at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. (Photo by Bertrand Piccard/Global Newsroom via AP Photo)

Event curators Harry Parr (L) and Sam Bompas (R) sit in paddle boats in the Truvia Voyage of Discovery installation on the roof of Selfridges department shop on July 21, 2011 in London, England. Selfridges is opening its roof to the public for only the second time since WW2 to host the installation, which includes a boating lake with dyed water and bar. (Photo by Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images)