Pictures of the Year 2021: Migration, and a world on the move

Migrants climb a sea wall in the northern town of Fnideq after attempting to cross the border from Morocco to Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta on May 19, 2021. In the past decade, refugee crises claimed headlines daily. Millions of people have fled their homes to find safety and a future. The Syrian civil conflict and the Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh are just two examples. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the situation has become even direr. Conflict is one of the main reasons people leave their homes searching for a better life. Sadly, there was a great deal of violence to escape throughout the year, particularly in Africa, where huge numbers were displaced, either within their borders or neighbouring States.

Migrants heading in a caravan towards the US wait for buses at the "House of the Pilgrim San Juan Diego" in Mexico City, on December 22, 2021.

Migrants embrace as they prepare to leave a shelter along other members of a migrant caravan that left southern Mexico two months ago and begin their journey to northern Mexico in buses after receiving their humanitarian visas to transit throughout the country, in Mexico City, Mexico.

A group of migrants is illuminated by the light of Turkish security forces, who apprehended them in an operation aimed at stemming the recent influx of migration, mainly from Afghanistan, and stopping human trafficking in the border province of Van, Turkey, on Aug. 21, 2021.

A law enforcement officer stands in from to migrant children, who queue to receive meals at the transport and logistics centre Bruzgi on the Belarusian-Polish border, in the Grodno region, Belarus December 22, 2021.

Honduran migrants clash with Guatemalan soldiers in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, on Jan. 17, 2021.

A migrant is comforted by a member of the Spanish Red Cross at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta near the border of Morocco and Spain, on May 18, 2021.

A child weeps as he is unloaded from an inflatable raft after being smuggled into the United States across the Rio Grande in Roma, Texas.

Migrant children gather near the fence on the Poland/Belarus border near Kuznica, Poland, in this video-grab released by the Polish Interior Ministry, November 11, 2021.

Yohaness, from Eritrea, prays with other migrants as they arrive at the coast of Italy aboard the Spanish vessel Open Arms, on Jan. 4, 2021, after being rescued in the Mediterranean sea.

Italian authorities members support children after rescuing migrants aboard German migrant rescue charity Sea-Eye 4 in the port of Pozzallo, southern Sicily, on December 24, 2021.

Migrants walk on the beach after being helped ashore by an RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel, in Dungeness, Britain, December 16, 2021.