Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's broadcast region and beyond for the 49th week of 2016. For more photo galleries, see our Picture This archive.
Photos Of The Week #49
1
People watch as Belarusian soldiers from the Defense Ministry take oaths at their base near the town of Borisov. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)
2
An injured woman walks at a site hit by an air strike in the rebel-held Al-Ansari neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria. (Reuters/Abdalrhman Ismail)
3
Afghans are reflected in mirrors for sale on a shop in Herat. (epa/Jalil Rezayee)
4
A Pakistani man walks past a horse and cart during fog in Lahore. (AFP/Arif Ali)
5
Russian artist Maria Gasanova adjusts her makeup as she finishes The Siberian Beauty body-art work from her The Alive Painting series before the opening ceremony of the Cultural Universiade as part of preparation for the 2019 Winter Universiade Krasnoyarsk, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on December 9. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
6
A boy stands at the doorway of his damaged house after it was hit by shelling in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine. (epa/Aleksandr Yermochenko)
7
Two young Romany boys ride a horse cart past an election billboard of an opposition SDSM candidate in Skopje, Macedonia. (epa/Georgi Licovski)
8
An Iraqi man drives a motorcycle, carrying a child and a white flag, in the Muharibin neighborhood of Mosul, as people gather for aid distribution. (AFP/Mahmud al-Samarrai)
9
Kyrgyz drummers perform during a concert held in cooperation with the Kuwaiti National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Kyrgyzstan's independence from the Soviet Union at Abdullhusain Abdulreda Theater in Salmiya, Kuwait on December 7. (epa/Raed Qutena)
10
Whirling dervishes perform a traditional "Sema" ritual during a ceremony, one of many marking the 743rd anniversary of the death of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, at Mevlana Cultural Center in Konya, Turkey, on December 8. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)
11
A security official stands guard at a hospital in Abbottabad beside coffins containing the remains of the 47 victims of a Pakistan International Airlines crash. A PIA ATR-42 plane crashed into a mountainside on December 7. Pakistani authorities are investigating the cause of the crash. (epa/Sultan Dogar)
12
Migrants warm up at a makeshift shelter at an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. (AFP/Andrej Isakovic)
13
Syrian residents fleeing the violence in the eastern rebel-held parts of Aleppo evacuate from their neighborhoods through the Bab al-Hadid district after it was seized by the government forces on December 7. (AFP/George Ourfalian)
14
A visitor and an employee dressed as Snegurochka (Snow Maiden), the granddaughter of Ded Moroz (Russian equivalent of Santa Claus), pose for a picture inside an upside-down house in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
15
Activists from the Lebanese NGO Abaad (Dimensions), a resource centre for gender equality, dressed as brides and wearing injury patches, protest in downtown Beirut against Article 522 in the Lebanese penal code. The article shields rapists from prosecution on the condition that they marry their victim, a phenomenon that is still practiced in the country, especially among conservative families whose chief aim is to preserve the family's so-called "honor." (AFP/Patrick Baz)
16
Mikhail Baburin, 66, is reflected in a mirror next to a portrait of Soviet singer, poet, and actor Vladimir Vysotsky at his house in the remote Siberian village of Mikhailovka. Baburin, a former Navy man, barge worker, and employee of a military plant in Krasnoyarsk, is the last inhabitant of Mikhailovka, which was founded in the 19th century by migrants from Russia's Mordovia region. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
17
Baburin moved in 2000 to Mikhailovka, where he was born. He has lived there all alone for the last 10 years with only domestic animals for company. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
18
Iraqi forces backed by tribal militias are seen during a battle to retake a village from Islamic State extremists on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. (Reuters/Mohammed Salem)
19
A child walks in front of Iraqi Army soldiers during an operation against Islamic State militants in the Intisar neighborhood of eastern Mosul. (Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah)
20
An Iraqi refugee girl, who fled the Iraqi city of Mosul due to the fighting between government forces and Islamic State (IS) militants, fills a container with water at a UN-run refugee camp in Syria's Hasakeh Province. (AFP/Delil Souleiman)
21
People carry their belongings as they flee the Kadi Askar area toward the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood in besieged, rebel-held Kadi Askar area of Aleppo, Syria, on December 5. (Reuters/Abdalrhman Ismail)
22
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is escorted by servicemen during a visit to a defense post located on the contact line with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, near the rebel-held town of Horlivka, north of Donetsk, on December 5. (Reuters/Mikhail Palinchak)
23
A street performer dressed as a bear is seen at a Christmas and New Year's market, with the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower seen in the background, on Red Square in Moscow. (Reuters/Maksim Shemetov)
24
A girl leads her camels as she sells fresh camel's milk on the GT road in Peshawar, Pakistan. (Reuters/Fayaz Aziz)
25
Skyscrapers are seen amid the clouds on a foggy morning in Dubai. (AFP/Rene Slama)