A woman eats candy in the shape of a phallus during the Kanamara Matsuri, or Iron Phallus Festival through a street near the Kanamara shrine in Kawasaki outside of Tokyo April 5, 2015. The festival celebrates fertility and is used to raise awareness and money for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Black-headed gulls sit on pickets at a riverside in Tokyo, Japan, December 27, 2015. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

A protester is taken away by law enforcement officers during a rally held by opposition supporters on the parliamentary election day in Almaty, Kazakhstan on January 10, 2021. Dozens of activists were detained in at least three major cities, including the capital, Nur-Sultan, and Almaty, with reports of independent observers being denied access or detained at some polling stations. (Photo by Petr Trotsenko/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

In this Thursday, May 25, 2017 photo, Donte, a musician who only gave his first name, straightens out dollar bills on his first day in a brand new Chewbacca costume purchased from eBay for $441, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Donte said he replaced the old one because he wasn't making any money with it. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

Young demonstrators (many shirtless) shout and cheer as they overturn a truck trailer in the Reflecting Pool on the Mall facing the Washington Monument during the “Honor America Day Smoke-In” thrown by marijuana activists to protest the official “Honor America Day” ceremonies being held at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, July 4, 1970. (Photo by David Fenton/Getty Images)

A woman films with her phone the incineration of packages of cocaine, part of a high seas drug seizure of 135 bundles by Salvadoran Naval Force, at a police base in Ilopango, El Salvador, November 29, 2021. (Photo by Jessica Orellana/Reuters)

Bangladeshi fisherman feed their otters as they catch fish in Narail some 208 kms from Dhaka on March 11, 2014. The fishermen are using a rare technique that relies on coordination between man and trained otters, a centuries-old fishing partnership that has already long died out in other parts of Asia. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP Photo)

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)