DJENNE, Mali. Kola Bah used to make a living as a tour guide in Mali’s historic town of Djenné, once a center of Islamic learning known for the sprawling adobe mosque that has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger list since 2016. .
The Great Mosque of Djenné, the largest adobe building in the world, used to attract tens of thousands of tourists to central Mali each year. It is now threatened by conflict between jihadist rebels, government forces and other groups.
Bah says his income was enough to support his family, which now has nine children, and to pay for a small herd of cattle. But these days, few visitors come to town and he has been virtually out of work. When he needs cash, he sells some of his livestock.
Speaking to The Associated Press outside his home in the old town of Djenné, Bah said locals believed the crisis would eventually end and business would recover as before.
“But the more time passed, the more illusory this dream became,” he said. “Things are really difficult now.”
Djenné is one of the oldest cities in sub-Saharan Africa and served as a market center and an important link in the trans-Saharan gold trade. Almost 2,000 of its traditional houses still survive in the old town.
The Great Mosque, built in 1907 on the site of an older mosque dating back to the 13th century, is revoked each year by local residents in a ritual that brings together the entire city. The imposing earth-colored structure requires a new layer of mud before the rainy season begins, or it would fall into disrepair.
The women are responsible for carrying water from the nearby river to mix it with clay and rice husks to make the mud that is used to plaster the mosque. Adding the new layer of mud is a job reserved for men. This joyful ritual is a source of pride for a city that has fallen on hard times and unites people of all ages.
Bamouyi Trao Traoré, one of Djenné’s main masons, says they have worked as a team from the beginning. This year’s plastering took place earlier this month.
“Each of us goes to a certain place to supervise,” he said. “This is how we do it until everything is finished. We organize ourselves, we supervise the youngest ones.”
Mali’s conflict erupted following a 2012 coup that created a power vacuum, allowing jihadist groups to take control of key northern cities. A French-led military operation drove them out of urban centers the following year, but the success was short-lived.
The jihadists regrouped and launched relentless attacks against the Malian army, as well as United Nations, French and regional forces in the country. The militants proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
Sidi Keita, director of Mali’s national tourism agency in the capital, Bamako, says the drop in tourism was steep after the violence.
“It was really a popular destination,” he said, describing tens of thousands of visitors a year and adding that today, tourists are “virtually absent in Mali.”
Despite being one of Africa’s top gold producers, Mali is among the world’s least developed nations, with almost half of its 22 million people living below the national poverty line. With the tourism industry virtually gone, Malians have fewer and fewer means to make a living.
Anger and frustration over what many Malians call “the crisis” are growing. The country has also suffered two more coups since 2020, during a wave of political instability in West and Central Africa.
Colonel Assimi Goita, who took command in Mali after a second coup in 2021, expelled French forces the following year and turned to Russian mercenary units for security help. He also ordered the UN to end its 10-year peacekeeping mission in Mali next year.
Goita has vowed to push back the armed groups, but the UN and other analysts say the government is rapidly losing ground to the militants. With Mali’s dire economic situation worsening, Goita’s ruling junta last month ordered a halt to all political activities and the next day banned the media from reporting on political activities.
Moussa Moriba Diakité, head of the Djenne cultural mission that strives to preserve the city’s heritage, said there are other challenges beyond security, including illegal excavations and garbage disposal in the city.
The mission is trying to promote the message that safety is not as bad as it seems, he said, and also involve more young people in the ritual of re-casting, to help the new generation recognize its importance.
“It’s not easy to get people to immediately understand the benefits of preserving cultural heritage,” he said.
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