AP PHOTOS: Editor selections from Latin America, Caribbean

This photo gallery highlights some of the top news images made by Associated Press photographers in Latin America and the Caribbean published in the past week.

Sports took a front seat in South America with the latest round of games in that region’s premier soccer tournaments, the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana. Perennial favourites like Argentina’s River Plate, Brazil’s Flamengo and many others faced off in the competition.

Brazil’s military was put in charge of the police force in Rio de Janeiro amid rising violence, raising concerns among some that the move will lead to more abuses by what is already one of the most deadly police forces in the word.

In Guatemala, people mourned the death of beloved Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales. The outspoken critic of corruption in the Central American nation died after battling cancer for months.

Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, formalized his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election, drawing broad condemnation from the United States and several Latin American neighbours who said the conditions for a fair election are lacking.

In the Colombian town of La Parada near the border with Venezuela, a family of Venezuelan immigrants repurposed their homeland’s worthless currency into origami-like paper wallets, belts and even purses as the bolivar further declines in value amid four-digit inflation.

Greenpeace members and other activists put on Donald Trump masks and carried signs saying “Racism is not commerce” during a protest in Mexico City against the seventh round of the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations.

The Mexico Tennis Open went on in Acapulco without the world’s No. 2 player, Rafael Nadal, after he bowed out citing an injury.

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This photo gallery was curated by photo editor Tomas Stargardter in Mexico City

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