Burkina Faso

"The news from the country are bad. There’s nothing over there. They’ve lost everything. A father, a brother, a husband. The hamlet’s been looted. The herd’s been dispersed. The same calamity had shattered their parents’ existence. Before that, it had devastated their grandparents’. Fatality gets tiring. Daily life at the camp sinks into glum boredom.

Sometimes new faces arrive. A cousin from Niamey, from Bamako, or, practically every day, new families from the north. People touch one another, they embrace. Suddenly there’s laughter and conversation over tea.

Aïcha is listed as living at the camp with her little brothers and sisters, but she’s either luckier or richer: she’s found somewhere to stay in the town.

The government-in-exile of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) is also based in Ouaga at the moment. In the absence of action, there are long debates and an impression that this is destiny."

Extract from Retour à Tombouctou, 2015, Éditions Gallimard