Story

Life on Mali's Niger River

July 28, 2014 | Pulitzer Center
By
Joshua Hammer

Eight miles south of Timbuktu, a ferry crosses the Niger River, Africa's third longest. Originating in the highlands of Guinea, the Niger flows for about 1,000 miles through the country, bending south and east after Timbuktu toward Gao and the Niger border. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

The sun sets over the Niger River near Ségou, the former capital of French West Sudan and the site of an annual Malian music festival that draws more than 10,000 people. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

A fisherman in a pirogue, or wooden canoe, casts his net at sunset near Ségou. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

A Tuareg nomad from Mali's north performs a traditional dance at the annual Festival on the Niger in Ségou. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

The Hand of Fatima, an eerie sandstone pinnacle named after the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, dominates the desolate landscape on the road to Gao, in northeast Mali. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

A fisherman on the Niger near Gao, Mali. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

Monochromatic mud flats make a popular cattle grazing spot on the road to Gao. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

A boat taxi makes a stop at Gao's ramshackle harbor, carrying commuters from a string of fishing villages along the Niger River. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

La Dune Rose—the Pink Dune—is a 90-foot-high sand dune along the Niger River. King Askia Mohammed, the ruler of the 16th century Songhay Empire, surveyed his domain from this vantage point—as did the Al Qaeda warlord Mokhtar Belmokhtar following his seizure of Gao in March 2012. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

The rugged landscape on the road to Gao brought geologists and rock-climbing enthusiasts to Mali's north—until the jihadists captured the north and turned these cliffs into sanctuaries for heavily armed fighters. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

A view of the Niger River from the top of the Pink Dune, where tourists gathered for picnics and overnights before the jihadists came to Gao. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

The Sankoré Mosque in Timbuktu, built at the height of the Songhay Empire, when the river town was considered one of the cultural and intellectual capitals of the Islamic world. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

Ségou's Festival on the Niger draws thousands of people to this river barge for four nights every February to hear Malian music stars such as Salif Keita and Amadou & Mariam. Image by Joshua Hammer. Mali, 2014.

Ali Farka Touré and other Malian artists drew inspiration from the Niger, a sinuous waterway that has supported life for thousands of years. Now that Al Qaeda is gone, the music has returned. While traveling on assignment through Mali in January and February 2014, I took a break from war reportage to spend four days at the Festival on the Niger, an annual event that brings some of Mali’s most famous musicians, including Salif Keita, to the bustling river town of Ségou.

Throngs of fans from around the world and a floodlit barge on the river provided a glimpse of cosmopolitan Mali—a poor but dynamic Sahel country with one of the world’s great musical heritages. But the Niger also reveals itself in more timeless images—a lone fisherman casting his net at sunset, and the view from the Pink Dune near Gao, virtually unchanged since the Emperor Askia Mohammed ruled this region in the early 16th century.