Africa's week in pictures: 4-10 June 2021

A woman and her great-grandson sit in candlelight.

During a power cut in South Africa on Wednesday, Cecilia Nkosi talks with her great-grandson Smangaliso at home in Soweto.

A boy sticks his head and shoulders out of a window

The day before, children look out the window at a monastery in Minya Governorate as part of a historic Coptic Christian ritual marking the “flight to Egypt”.

Demonstrators hold a sign saying " Assimi president, Choguel prime minister".

Supporters of Mali’s M5 protest movement that helped oust President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta exactly a year ago come out to the streets again to mark the milestone. Choguel Maïga, who leads the M5, has since been appointed prime minister by the ruling military junta ahead of promised elections next year.

A woman and a man sit on pile of picked maize.

On Tuesday maize farmers Catherine and Desderioa Mubaiwa handle their harvest in Zimbabwe, where this year’s bumper crop has seen the government halt all imports.

Members of a marching band sit on grass.

Also on Tuesday, in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, a marching band rests before a grand ceremony marking the country’s first sale of a telecoms licence to a privately owned mobile services provider. That same day the UN chief warned the war-torn, northern Tigray region was on the “brink of famine”.

A sculpture stands on stage during a rehearsal of Iyagbon’s Mirror…

The Nigerian production explores how “colonial exploitation” means “most of the African sculptural heritage” has been “purchased, found or stolen to be exhibited” in Europe, and imagines reversing this process to restore the artefacts’ “ritual” power.

A man walks through shafts of light and shadow.

A man walks through the Circa Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday.

A women knits a blanket while she sits among hundreds of other blankets.

Also in Johannesburg a day earlier, so-called “knitwits” take part in a project to knit thousands of blankets for those in need during the winter months.

In Egypt on Monday, this woman makes a basket from recycled plastic waste collected from the River Nile.

A man lowers objects into the water from a boat.

Meanwhile off Tunisia’s coast on Friday, an environmental activist lowers artificial reefs into the sea to improve marine ecosystems.

A group of volunteers haul rubbish and debris from a river.

The Canaan Riverside Green Peace group in Kenya also do their part, hauling debris out of the Nairobi River on Saturday.

After Mount Nyiragongo erupted in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, people living in the foothills and surrounding areas had little choice but to flee with whatever belongings they could carry. The passengers on this bus on Tuesday are returning home to Goma.

And on Sunday in Liberia, a man takes it easy outside a shop in Gobachop market in the capital Monrovia.