|
Malian refugee Abdou Ag Moussa, 34, poses for a portrait with his family outside of their shelter in Mentao refugee camp, Burkina Faso, on the 15th of March, 2013. Abdou’s family are nomadic Tuareg herders from Ebangamallan encampment, near Gosi, Mali. On the morning of January 25th, 2012, Abdou was tending to the family’s camels several hours away from their camp, and his father, Abdo Samad Ag Mohammed Asalek, 64, was away looking after the family’s cattle. That day, while observing prayers, Abdou’s mother, Zikra Wallet Mohammed, 40, and five other women, were abducted by armed men. They were taken a short distance from the encampment, and shot. Abdou’s mother, and four others, were killed. One of the women survived, but lost a leg. When Abdou learned what had happened, he waited until dark and then returned to the camp, loading his wife and two children onto a donkey in secret, then escaping into the desert. When the gunmen departed three days later, Abdou returned to bury his mother’s body. It had been left in the sun, and attacked by animals. He recalls counting 30 bullet holes. “For seven days and nights, I didn’t sleep. I only prayed, and thought. Even now, I barely sleep. When I fled from Mali, my hair was black. In only a year look how much of it has turned grey, like it is mixed with ashes”, he says. The most important object that Abdou was able to flee Mali with is the motorcycle that he and his family sit upon in this photograph. After burying his mother, Abdou put his wife and children into a car. He and his father followed on the motorcycle, which he says saved their lives. (Photo by Brian Sokol/Panos Pictures)
|
