A pick of Egypt's most striking photos in 2015

A controlled explosion demolishes the Cairo headquarters of the National Democratic Party, which ruled Egypt under Hosni Mubarak until his toppling in 2011. The building, which overlooked the Nile in an upscale district of the capital, was burned out during the 18-day uprising. The entire demolition process lasted around three months [Layaly Abdulaziz]

A man kisses the ground in joy after managing to get a canister of cooking gas during this year’s fuel crisis. Severe shortages of cooking gas in the first half of the year led to steep price rises and hours-long queues [Rania Gomaa]

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu eyes her Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shukri, during a joint press conference after Egyptian forces mistakenly killed eight Mexican tourists in September [Hadeer Mahmoud]

Locals help evacuate an elderly man after his apartment catches fire in Cairo [Ahmed al-Maliky]

Activist Israa al-Taweel cries after a judge rules to extend her detention for a further 45 days in October. Taweel, a photojournalist and student activist, disappeared in June, and turned up in prison two weeks later charged with belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false information to distort Egypt’s reputation abroad. Taweel, who was shot in the back while photographing a protest in 2012, was released on health grounds in December after rights groups warned that her continued detention risked permanently harming her health. The charges against her remain [Sameh Abou el-Hassan]

Fans of the Zamalek football club hold their tickets in the air after a disaster at Cairo’s Air Force Stadium in February. 28 of the club’s supporters were killed during a stampede ahead of a league match, which went ahead after a 40-minute delay despite the fatalities outside [Ahmed al-Najjar]

Egyptian soldiers collect luggage belonging to the passengers and crew of Metrojet Flight 9268, the Russian passenger plane that came down over Sinai in October, killing all 290 people on board. Militants linked to Islamic State immediately claimed to have shot the plane down, and examination of the black boxes later proved that an explosion had caused the crash [Alaa al Kassas]

A protester cries out for help after his friend is shot during an anti-government demonstration on the first day of Eid in July. Six people were killed throughout the day of protests on the last day of Ramadan [Belal Wagdy]

Egyptians look on as the wreck of a Nile pleasure boat that sank north of Cairo in July, killing 38 people. The boat had been hired by a young couple celebrating their engagement. The boat’s captain turned himself in to the authorities following the disaster, and is currently facing trial for the deaths [Hossam Bakir]

Al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy speaks to his defence lawyer, Amal Clooney, during a session of his trial in August. Fahmy and two Al-Jazeera colleagues, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste, were originally convicted in 2014 of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, and served over a year in jail each. Fahmy was released in September of this year after a presidential pardon, but faces an ongoing struggle to reinstate his Egyptian citizenship, which was revoked on his arrest [Hussein Talal]

Security forces load the bodies of four colleagues, two police officers and two army conscripts, into a truck to be taken to the mortuary. The men were killed during an ambush in Giza in November. The perpetrators behind the attack have not yet been apprehended [Hussein Talal]

A fellow protester clutches Shaimaa Sabbagh after she is fatally shot by security forces on 24 January. Sabbagh, a poet and socialist activist, had been on her way to lay flowers in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square - in memory of those killed during Egypt’s 2011 uprising – when soldiers opened fire [Islam Osamah] - Winner

Shocked Egyptians look on as a bomb blast goes off outside the Italian embassy in central Cairo in July [Mohammed Ashraf]

A young boy plays in the water after the opening of the New Suez Canal. Authorities hope the expanded waterway, opened to much fanfare in August, will help boost revenues from shipping routes through Egypt [Moustafa Emera]

Young soldiers take part in a parade at the military college in Cairo [Mahmoud Khaled]

A group of women demonstrate in front of the Journalists’ Syndicate in Cairo on 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women [Mahmoud Ehab Aldahab]

A relative of one of the 21 Egyptian Copts kidnapped by Islamic State in Libya cries after hearing that the group had been beheaded. IS released a grisly video claiming to show the massacre in February. The victims were mostly poor Egyptians forced by high unemployment rates at home to seek work in neighbouring Libya, where a power vacuum has led to a rise in militancy. In the aftermath of the video’s release Egyptian forces carried out a bombing raid over Libya, and the victims were canonized as saints in the Coptic church [Mohammed al-Shahid]

An elderly woman sleeps in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as police officers take a break in the background [Mohammed Osam]

A taxi driver cries as he watches his car catch fire during a demonstration on the fourth anniversary of the 25 January uprising. At least 20 people were killed during a day of violent protests throughout the country [Motaz Zaki]