In a heavily guarded prison in the city of Agadez, in the north of Niger, convicted people smuggler Sade Yaya* sits on a stool in the yard. For several years, he drove migrants through the desert from this region, usually to the Libyan border.
The passage through the Agadez region – once a thoroughfare for people migrating north to work in Libya or Algeria, or trying to make it to Europe – was criminalised for most travellers in 2015 by an anti-people-smuggling law, brought in by Niger’s government with the support of EU authorities.
