Gold fever sweeps north Niger, bringing change to towns

Agadez, Niger

AT least 100 men sleep on mats at the bus station in Agadez. They are gold panners, heading for the far north of Niger or returning as gold fever sweeps the country.

Some say that a banal incident triggered the rush. "Some people got their car bogged down in sand in the desert. When they cleared it, they found a few nuggets. That was in 2013, near Djado," said El-Hadj Mohamed Sale, a former guide who knows the Sahara well. "The place was a gully where the wind had swept sand away. So there was only gold," he added. "They made three round trips. Once they returned for the third time, everything took off."