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Niger, which until Wednesday’s coup by mutinous soldiers had avoided the military takeovers that destabilized West African neighbors in recent years.

a Francophone region where anti-French sentiment had opened the way for the Russian private military group Wagner.

Signaling Niger’s importance in the region where Wagner also operates, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited in March to strengthen ties and announce $150 million in direct assistance, calling the country “a model of democracy.”Now a critical question is whether Niger might pivot and engage Wagner as a counterterrorism partner like its neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso, which have kicked out French forces. France shifted more than 1,000 personnel to Niger after pulling out of Mali last year.

a sweeping historical recalibration that centers on the importance of 14th-century trade routes that crossed the Sahara Desert and drove the movement of people, goods, and culture. As one flyer exclaims: “Weaving stories about interconnected histories, the exhibition showcases objects and ideas that connected at the crossroads of the medieval Sahara and celebrates West Africa’s historic and underrecognized global significance.” This is ambitious. The show doesn’t aim for less than decentering the idea that the medieval epoch should only be envisioned through a European lens, which are typically stories of feudalism, war, chivalry, and the Bubonic plague. These European sagas are the ones I grew up with, saw dramatized on television, and valorized in film. Caravans of Gold also seeks to put Islam at this reconstructed world’s fulcrum and regard it as a force which impelled cultural advance, rather than to associate it with iconoclastic destruction of historical patrimony — stories we know too well. Even more, it subtly raises up the entire African continent, which becomes through this retelling, a force of profound socioeconomic change at the global level. As their handout highlights: “Journey to a medieval world with Africa at its center.”

“Between the eight and the 16th century, an epoch that corresponds with the medieval period, the Saharan region was the site of world-shaping events.”

Partnering with institutions and researchers in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria was the only way that Berzock could, in the first instance, begin to understand the significance of scattered bits and pieces of commercially traded items left centuries ago in those once thriving cities and towns encompassed by the Saharan trade networks

Twenty-five foreigners have been abducted in the Sahel since 2015 and 10 remain captive, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). Blais and Tacchetto are the only two western hostages known to have escaped. Three have been killed, three were liberated by French and U.S. forces and seven were released, the organization said.

While the abductions of internationals garner significantly more attention, people aren’t only kidnapped for ransom and there are scores of locals from the Sahel also taken by armed Islamists, whether for extortion, intimidation or punishment, said Corinne Dufka West Africa director for Human Rights Watch.

he and the Italian, Tacchetto, were separated for most of their captivity, during which time they converted to Islam at the behest of their captors, she said. It was once they reunited that they escaped. Blais said she doesn’t forgive the men who took her, but understands they were just following orders, convinced they were doing the right thing thinking they’d be given a special place in heaven, she said.