Ten years ago, French radio journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were murdered by a commando from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in the north-eastern Malian town of Kidal. Since then, the security situation in Africa’s Sahel region has continually worsened. Today, the vast area stretching from Mauritania to Sudan has become a no man's land for journalists, a black hole for news.
For the past decade, several countries in the Sahel region – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – have been facing a major Islamist insurgency. Western journalists are no longer welcome in the region, particularly those from the French press.
