The Observer's 20 photographs of the week

A Kumari outside her house during the parade commemorating the Neku Jatra-Mataya festival – the festival of lights – in Lalitpur, Nepal. A Kumari is a young girl believed to be a host for the goddess Durga Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

A sand martin is caught in a mist net as it came in to roost on a private reserve in Rye, England.
Dan Kitwood produced a beautiful set documenting the process of recording migrating sand martins, house martins, swallows and other birds at the reserve by the British Trust for Ornithology Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

An Indian boy eats outside his house in Varanasi Photograph: Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

Six-year-old Kieren Hall pitches for Perth, Australia, against Corpus Christi, Texas, in the first innings of a baseball game at the Little League World Series tournament in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania Photograph: Gene J Puskar/AP

Indian labourers carry a giant basket of vegetables to a wholesale market in Kolkata Photograph: Bikas Das/AP

A powerful portrait with a powerful story: Angelica Maribel Murillo at her home in the La Nueva Australia neighbourhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2008, Angelica's husband accused her of having an affair and cut off her hands with a machete as he tried to kill her. He is still on the run, while she raises their four children by making and selling tortillas. Some 225 women have been killed during the first six months of 2013, according to local media Photograph: Jorge Cabrera/Reuters

Flames consume trees along US Highway 120 as a fire burns out of control in Buck Meadows, California Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The continuing conflict in the Middle East and north Africa once again provided the most harrowing news images of the week.
Here a man holds a dead child among the bodies of people activists say were killed by nerve gas in the Ghouta region of the Duma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria Photograph: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters

A Free Syrian Army fighter rests inside a house in Deir el-Zour Photograph: Khalil Ashawi /Reuters

Amna Ahmad Ali's 27-year-old son Mahmoud was shot and killed by a sniper in Cairo, Egypt. Her grief is shared by her sister and sister-in-law Photograph: IBL/Rex Features

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys perform at a concert at the Shanghai Grand Stage in China Photograph: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

Cheating a little bit here. This photo wasn't taken this week but it is recent and deserves its place in 20 Photos.
I saw a tweet by @bypip that read: 'Don't usually do street photography, but made an exception: Two guys. One suit. 5am in Stoke. Big one.' And this accompanied it. So far it has been retweeted 1,600 times. Check out Pip's website
Photograph: Pip/SONSLTD

A partygoer is squirted with water after winning a bet on a crab race at a pub called the Friend in Hand in central Sydney, Australia. Crab racing is held every night at several pubs across Sydney, with up to 30 crabs placed in the centre of a table and then being released to see which one reaches the edge of the table first and is declared the winner. The events are popular mainly with overseas visitors who bet on the result to win T-shirts or glasses of beer Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

People watch the Deopokhari festival from the roof of a house in Khokana, Nepal Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

A woman looks at racist graffiti on the walls of a house recently occupied by two Nigerian men in Belfast, Northern Ireland Photograph: Stephen Barnes/Demotix/Corbis

Palestinians enjoying the beach at Gaza Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Corbis

Two relatives of injured Palestinian shepherd Najeh Abu Ali visit him while he receives medical treatment at the main hospital in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The shepherd says he was hit on the head and hands by men wielding metal pipes in the vicinity of West Bank Jewish settlers' outposts Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP

An Indian villager smokes tobacco as he joins other protesters during a rally demanding pensions for elderly poor citizens in New Delhi, India Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

Actor Harry Dean Stanton poses for a portrait for the film Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction at Dan Tana's Restaurant in West Hollywood, California Photograph: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

An elderly Hindu devotee is carried by Kashmiri Muslim porters during the pilgrimage from Sangam to the holy Amarnath Cave Shrine, in Srinagar Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images