Ansongo

Ansongo stands on the Niger southeast of Gao, where the river crosses the dry plains of the Sahel. The waters sustain fish and a narrow belt of cultivation in a country otherwise suited to livestock grazing. Songhai-speaking communities live along this stretch of the river, whose course links settlements of the eastern Niger bend. Boats, fishing grounds and flood-recession fields have long formed part of life beside a river that brings water through the arid landscape.