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  • The Christian Science Monitor

    In the Sahara, a vast emptiness etched with a thousand paths

    Jan 11, 2019 3 minutes
    Niger Police forces in Agadez, Niger, protect a convoy crossing the Sahara desert from Niger north to Libya, in mid-October 2018. In a bid to stem irregular migration from Africa to Europe, the EU is spending $270 million for programs in Niger, part of a security-development package that has seen the number of migrants heading north drop from 334,000 in 2016 to fewer than 50,000 in 2018.

    In Agadez, one simple, overriding reality imposes itself: the vast emptiness that surrounds this ancient trading post in the southern reaches of the Sahara desert.

    Yet, as we found on a recent reporting trip together, that single reality means very different things to many different people. Not least to the two of us.

    For Scott, the trip recalled his first youthful adventure in these parts, nearly 30 years ago, crossing the Sahara astride a Honda 500cc dirt bike. (More about that later.)

    But I had never been this far south in Africa and I was surprised

    A crossroads, an oasisThe lure of the desert

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