Mirages

They come from Mali, Senegal, Niger, Ghana… Each day, dozens of them set out across the Sahara, from Agadez to Djanet, from Niger to Libya, battling with thirst, sand storms, the night’s chill, getting utterly lost in a multitude of mirages. First, there is the horizon behind the desert, this line, beyond heaven and earth, where El Dorado of an inaccessible Europe is supposed to lie. But more importantly there are the illegal convoys of cars loaded with clusters of human beings which appear and disappear in the desert leaving no trace, swept away in whirlwinds of sand. And again the mirage of the illusion that the immensity of the desert does away with frontiers and make immigrants invisible, when it exposes them defenceless against ransom and murder. (Yann Lardeau)