On the road in Agadez: desperation and death along a Saharan smuggling route
As political leaders prepare to meet in Malta to discuss measures to stem the flow of migrants and refugees from Africa to Europe, Patrick Kingsley meets the smugglers and the smuggled on a route through the desert from Niger
People sit on the open cargo of pick-up trucks, holding wooden sticks tied to the vehicle, as they leave the outskirts of Agadez for Libya. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
People sit on the open cargo of pick-up trucks, holding wooden sticks tied to the vehicle, as they leave the outskirts of Agadez for Libya. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
Refugees wait to disembark from the Italian Navy vessel Chimera in the harbor of Salerno, Italy. Photograph: Francesco Pecoraro/AP
Patrick Kingsley in Agadez-Monday 9 November 2015
You can’t see the road from Agadez in Niger to Libya. You simply drive to the edge of the local airstrip, turn left, fork right, head past the one building on the horizon – a lonely police checkpoint – and that’s it. Only a select few local drivers know which dunes lead across the Sahara and which ones lead to oblivion. And in three days of driving, there are plenty of wrong turnings to make.
A sandstorm in Agadez, August 2015. In the desert, sandstorms can disorientate smugglers, alter the terrain, and throw them off course – causing some to die of thirst.
