A world ablaze

Some of what was captured by AP photographers in 2021

“Some say the world will end in fire,” wrote the poet Robert Frost — and for much of 2021, Associated Press photographers captured scenes of a world ablaze, amid rumblings of ruin.

In New Delhi, a man sprints amid the funeral pyres of covid-19 victims — too many fires, too much heat, too many victims. On a beach near the village of Limni, Greece, the horizon is lit by the flames of wildfires raging across the eastern Mediterranean.

And at La Palma in the Canary Islands, the inferno is in the Cumbre Vieja volcano. But more than 10,000 million cubic meters of ash turn the world into a negative, with black ash taking the place of white snow.

Not all of the combustion is so literal.

There is fury: the astonishing moment when police aimed their guns at rioters trying to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol; Mexican demonstrators against gender violence, hurling themselves at barricades; an Ethiopian woman’s wrath as she fights for every split pea in starving, war-torn Tigray.

And there are the sorrowful embers of violence. Stoic Palestinians carry the body of a child who died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, while a continent away, mourners bear the body of a man killed while protesting the coup in Myanmar. And in Haiti, the wife of slain President Jovenel Moise, Martine, leaves a memorial gathering in black widow’s weeds and mask.

There was more to 2021, of course. There was fun: Lady Gaga wore one of the world’s largest dresses to Joe Biden’s inauguration.

There were moments of hope. Even as millions more died of covid-19, billions were vaccinated. Health care worker Nazir Ahmed ventured to remote Kashmiri meadows to inoculate shepherds, some of them vaccine resistant. He stands in his protective gear on a hillock, like an emissary from covid times who somehow found himself in a South Asian remake of “The Sound of Music.”

There are other images that recall the movies, but askew.

Those men on horseback in 10-gallon hats are not the cowboys of classic Westerns; they’re border agents, corralling Haitian migrants as they try to cross the Rio Grande into the United States.

And the man and woman caught in a passionate embrace in Barcelona, Spain, are not characters in a romantic comedy; behind them, a riot rages over the imprisonment of a rapper convicted of insulting the Spanish monarchy. And the streets are on fire.

(File Photo/AP/Bernat Armangue) A migrant is comforted by a member of the Spanish Red Cross on May 18 at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta near the border of Morocco and Spain.

(File Photo/AP/Aaron Favila) Shredded trees and the shells of homes lie half buried in mud Jan. 10 near the Taal volcano almost a year after it erupted in Batangas province, a popular tourist destination just south of Manila, Philippines.

(File Photo/AP/Altaf Qadri) A farmer smokes a bidi, or hand-rolled cigarette, Jan. 7 during a tractor rally to protest new farm laws in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of New Delhi, India.

(File Photo/AP/Nariman El-Mofty) Yemeni fighters backed by the Saudi-led coalition ride on the back of an armored vehicle June 19 as they leave the front lines of Marib, Yemen.

(File Photo/AP/Emilio Morenatti) A couple kiss in front of a barricade set on fire by demonstrators Feb. 18 during clashes with police following a protest condemning the imprisonment of rap singer Pablo Hasel in Barcelona, Spain. Hasel was convicted of insulting the Spanish monarchy and praising terrorist violence.

(File Photo/AP/Rebecca Blackwell) A penguin swims Jan. 13 in an enclosure housing gentoo and chinstrap penguins at Mexico City’s Inbursa Aquarium.

(File Photo/AP/Rebecca Blackwell) Demonstrators attack a barricade protecting Mexico City’s National Palace on March 8 during a march to commemorate International Women’s Day and protest against gender violence.

(File Photo/AP/Jacquelyn Martin) A woman holds a cutout of President Donald Trump’s face Jan. 6 at a rally in Washington in support of Trump called the “Save America Rally.”