Khader
Khader
 Scenes from the Air Mountains.
tuareg4.jpg
Amoumen Khalil washes his feet in preparation to pray. Amoumen, a trained veterinary technician who joined the rebellion after what he saw as decades of discrimination against Tuareg.
A group of Tuareg rebels play a game using spent batteries and camel dung.
Amouden, a rebel fighter, takes a break in a small provision shop.
Rebel soldiers stand in front of debris left over from the battle of Tezerheit. 
A displaced woman and her child who used to live in the town of Iferouane.
A baby sleeping in a traditional Tuareg encampment. 
Freshly slaughtered goat.
A Tuareg soldier poses for a portrait.
Ibrahim Khader, 22 years old, joined the rebellion after being a petrol smuggler in Algeria.
Scene from the Air Mountains.
A group of Tuareg soldiers traveling around with their pet monkey.
A soldier checks his bullets.
Keeping watch over the desert.
Khader
KhaderSince February 2007 a group of mostly Tuareg rebels have been fighting a low-level insurgent war against the government of Niger. From a series of bases in the remote, arid Air Mountains, which sit astride vast seas of dunes of the Sahara, the rebellion seeks to gain a greater share of the country’s uranium wealth and to prevent the fragile ecosystem of Tuareg pastoral lands from damage due to mining. The government has responded to the rebellion with increasing violence, calling the rebels drug traffickers and bandits and refusing to negotiate their political demands.Niger is the world’s third largest supplier of uranium, and the price of uranium has skyrocketed as energy hungry economies like China increasingly look to the nuclear fuel to power their growing economies.These images were taken during three weeks of traveling with the Niger Movement for Justice, as the group is known, in April and May 2008. Because this remote region is completely cut off to the news media, these images offer a rare glimpse of the rebellion and the people it claims it is protecting.The images also document the timeless yet changing way of life of the Tuareg people, whose nomadic livelihoods have been threatened by climate change, globalization, migration and mining.Khader Abdulla, one of a handful of non-Tuareg fighters who have joined the rebellion.
Scenes from the Air Mountains.
Scenes from the Air Mountains.
tuareg4.jpg
Amoumen Khalil washes his feet in preparation to pray. Amoumen, a trained veterinary technician who joined the rebellion after what he saw as decades of discrimination against Tuareg.
Amoumen Khalil washes his feet in preparation to pray. Amoumen, a trained veterinary technician who joined the rebellion after what he saw as decades of discrimination against Tuareg.
A group of Tuareg rebels play a game using spent batteries and camel dung.
A group of Tuareg rebels play a game using spent batteries and camel dung.
Amouden, a rebel fighter, takes a break in a small provision shop.
Amouden, a rebel fighter, takes a break in a small provision shop.
Rebel soldiers stand in front of debris left over from the battle of Tezerheit. 
Rebel soldiers stand in front of debris left over from the battle of Tezerheit. 
A displaced woman and her child who used to live in the town of Iferouane.
A displaced woman and her child who used to live in the town of Iferouane.
A baby sleeping in a traditional Tuareg encampment. 
A baby sleeping in a traditional Tuareg encampment. 
Freshly slaughtered goat.
Freshly slaughtered goat.
A Tuareg soldier poses for a portrait.
A Tuareg soldier poses for a portrait.
Ibrahim Khader, 22 years old, joined the rebellion after being a petrol smuggler in Algeria.
Ibrahim Khader, 22 years old, joined the rebellion after being a petrol smuggler in Algeria.
Scene from the Air Mountains.
Scene from the Air Mountains.
A group of Tuareg soldiers traveling around with their pet monkey.
A group of Tuareg soldiers traveling around with their pet monkey.
A soldier checks his bullets.
A soldier checks his bullets.
Keeping watch over the desert.
Keeping watch over the desert.
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