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Powder, puppets and ponies: Africa's top shots

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

Gerald Anderson / Getty Images Crowds of dancing people are covered in multicoloured powder.Gerald Anderson / Getty Images
Colour Festival kicks off in Nairobi on Saturday...
Gerald Anderson / Getty Images Crowds of smiling people are covered in multicoloured powder.Gerald Anderson / Getty Images
The event in the Kenyan capital attracts young revellers...
Gerald Anderson / Getty Images Crowds of smiling people are covered in multicoloured powder.Gerald Anderson / Getty Images
Who joyously throw powder pigments in the air and dance to music.
Sebnem Coskun / Getty Images A clownfish hides among white anemones. Sebnem Coskun / Getty Images
A clownfish nestles among anemones in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt on Friday...
Mahmut Serdar Alakus / Getty Images A diver shines a flashlight under water at a wreck.Mahmut Serdar Alakus / Getty Images
While on Wednesday in the same body of water, Turkish divers find cars, clothes and toys as they explore a ferry that sank on its way from Saudi Arabia to Egypt in 1991.
Simon Maina / AFP Voters queue at a polling station at the Sam Nujoma stadium in Windhoek.Simon Maina / AFP
It's election day in Namibia on Wednesday, where these voters queue in the sun.
AFP A man wearing turban sits at a rooftop cafe.AFP
This man sits on a wall in his home village of Ait Benhaddou in Morocco, which is renowned for it earthen clay architecture.
Yassine Gaidi / Getty Images A man manipulates two puppets on strings. The puppets are holding a drum and a trumpet.Yassine Gaidi / Getty Images
A puppet show ushers in the Carthage Theatre Festival in Tunisia on Sunday.
Cem Ozdel / Getty Images A man or woman walks on stilts.Cem Ozdel / Getty Images
On Wednesday in Senegal, Dakar Carnival begins...
Cem Ozdel / Getty Images People in masks sway.Cem Ozdel / Getty Images
It's a show-stopping display of Serer, Fulani (Peuhl) and Mandinka cultures...
Cem Ozdel / Getty Images A woman sits cross-legged on the ground and sings.Cem Ozdel / Getty Images
With singers and all manner of performers on the bill.
Legnan Koula / EPA Young men pet a small horse or pony. Legnan Koula / EPA
Abidjan Livestock Summit in Ivory Coast attracts visitors, young and old, on Friday.
Brenton Geach / Getty Images People drive motorbikes in a convoy. Plush toys are fastened on to the bikes.Brenton Geach / Getty Images
In South Africa on Sunday, a procession of bikers take part in the Toy Run...
Brenton Geach / Getty Images A man arranges a huge mass of plush toys on the back of a lorry.Brenton Geach / Getty Images
The idea is that masses of cuddly toys will be donated afterwards to children in need.
Abubaker Lubowa / Reuters A woman flexes her arm at the door of a police van.Abubaker Lubowa / Reuters
A protester looks defiant as she is pushed into a police van in Uganda's capital city on Monday. She was among those voicing their rage at the treatment of opposition leader Kizza Besigye, whose wife says he was unjustly abducted in Kenya then sent to a military jail.
AFP A teacher stands at the front of a classroom while invigilating an examination.AFP
And on Sunday, teenagers sit their end-of-year exams in Usli, northern Sudan.

From the BBC in Africa this week:

Getty Images/BBC A woman looking at her mobile phone and the graphic BBC News AfricaGetty Images/BBC

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