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For three days, this semi-arid plot bordering the Sahara Desert blooms with a riot of colors – red, orange, blue, fuschia – as thousands of nomadic herders don their best dresses for a festival celebrating their culture.
Most of the time, the small oasis town of Ingall has only a few hundred inhabitants. But once a year, the traditional gateway from northern Niger to the Sahara, known for its salt marshes, is the meeting point of the Cure Salee festival for Tuareg and Wodaabe herders.
The festival which ends on Sunday marks the end of the rainy season, when herders bring their animals to pasture – and where they meet old friends, exchange news and strengthen cultural ties and traditions.
“Every year that we come, we meet herders from Zinder, Tahoua, Tilia, from all over Niger,” said Banwo Marafa, 46, wearing a purple waxed cotton dress topped with a long white turban.
“We’ve known each other for a long time. We get together every year with music and dancing. It’s a big party.”
This year’s one is even more important, he said, as last year’s rally was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Before being free”
Further on, his nephew and about fifty other young people, all men, dance in circles in the sand.
They sing about love and reunion in the Fulani language. Others watch, traditional swords slung.
Everywhere there is festive energy.
But when people sit under the awnings of their tents, the mood changes and faces that previously lit up with laughter and smiles quickly turn serious.
The festival marks the end of the rainy season, when shepherds bring their animals to pasture – and where they meet old friends, exchange news, and strengthen cultural ties and traditions. By Michèle Cattani (AFP) The celebrations are only a brief interval in the life of these shepherds. Lives that become more and more difficult as the task of finding water and grazing their animals becomes more difficult.
“Before, we were free. We took our herds everywhere, ”explains Assamou Malem, a local leader. “But for 50 years, the problems have accumulated: lack of work, land issues, a lot of injustices.
In Niger, the least performing country in the world in terms of human development index, nomads have, as elsewhere in the Sahel, been ignored by political decision-makers since independence in 1960.
And after several Tuareg rebellions in Mali and Niger, Sahelian nomads were the first to be recruited by jihadist groups, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
These groups are established in Mali, Burkina Faso and neighboring regions of Niger, but not yet here.
The life of the shepherds becomes more and more difficult as the task of finding water and grazing their animals becomes more difficult. By Michèle Cattani (AFP) But this immense desert in northern Niger, already land of trafficking and illegal migration, “is perceived by terrorists as the territory they are intended to gradually occupy,” President Mohamed Bazoum warned on Friday on the occasion of the opening of a forum in Ingall bringing together the State and traditional leaders.
He said that we must be ready “to be armed to face the demands of these two groups”.
General Mahamadou Abou Tarka, who heads the powerful High Authority for the Consolidation of Peace, also warned against “small conflicts” between communities which lead to large-scale violence.
Discourse on the jihadist threat shunned
At the 2021 festival, NGO outreach booths line up in a long line, armored vehicles guard the entrance to the VIP area, and a surveillance drone, presumably from a nearby US air base, flies through the blue sky at the above us.
The celebrations are only a brief interval in the life of these shepherds. By Michele Cattani (AFP) But of all those interviewed by AFP, no one except President Bazoum would speak openly about the jihadist threat hanging over the region.
“We must not wait for the fire to be there to put it out,” said the president of the Agadez regional council, Mohamed Anacko, sideways.
Away from the building housing the forum, the event nevertheless looks like a festival like any other, except that it takes place in the Sahara.
There are the Quechua shepherds camping tents (preferred over traditional tents for the duration of the festival); a group of Russian tourists; the concert of the Tuareg star Bombino.
Only Nigerien President Bazoum will speak openly about the jihadist threat hanging over the region. By Michèle Cattani (AFP) Someone has set up a sound system and made passers-by dance.
Meanwhile, a group of young Fulani Wodaabe gathered around one of them wearing makeup for a ceremony.
“It was better before,” said another group leader, anonymously denouncing the “politicization” of the festival by the authorities.
“Originally it was a nomadic event for nomads,” he says. “We just celebrated.”
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