The bus station in Agadez is very busy. The Nigerien desert city is one of the most important regional hubs. Here, on the northern edge of the Sahel, trade routes between West Africa and the Maghreb have converged for centuries.

And the boundaries between legally traded goods and smuggled goods have always been blurred. In particular the smuggling of people from sub-Saharan Africa who set off for Europe without papers is – at least unofficially – considered the city's main source of income.

Bamadou also wanted to make his way to Europe with the help of smugglers. However, the young man from Guinea gave up after a short time. He is now stranded in Agadez and warns other migrants about the increasingly brutal criminal gangs in the desert.

"Sometimes they come with baseball bats and just start beating people. Several people even died in a migrant convoy in March. Three Senegalese, two South Americans and from Guinea," he tells DW.

In 2015, under pressure from the European Union, Niger's government passed a far-reaching anti-smuggling law, sent heavily armed patrols into the desert, and arrested hundreds of smugglers within a few months.

But following the military coup in 2023, the new rulers abolished the law.

"The new military leadership went through with it just one day after signing a new military agreement with Russia," says Ulf Laessing, head of the........

© Deutsche Welle