Nigeriens fleeing Libya mourn riches to rags status

Brooding on an alleyway bench in Agadez's Amarwatt district, Yassine Souleymane and his fellow countrymen returning from battle-torn Libya have no work and nothing to do. "We're useless," he laments. Until recently the 43-year-old earned a good living over the border selling computer hardware in Tripoli. Like 200,000 others who left Niger in search of their fortune, he fled home when fighting broke out between Muammar Gaddafi's regime and the rebels seeking to topple the defiant leader. After 13 years he is back, and reduced to living for the past two months with his daughter and her soldier husband -- a change of circumstance which fills him with shame. "It's embarrassing for me," he said in his native Housa language. "Business was going well in Libya and I was sending back 150,000 CFA francs (225 euros) to my family every month." Dressed in a faded robe, Yassine's childhood friend, tailor Abdoul-Wahab Alaou, returned from Misrata in western Libya in April. "I left six sewing machines there and credit notes and all my savings worth 300,000 CFA francs (450 euros). Now I'm a parasite," the 39-year-old said. His concerned brother Ibrahim, with whom he is now living, added: "When he arrived he refused to work, hardly spoke and lost lots of weight. "For the past five years he has been paying for our four young brothers' schooling." Twins Hassane and Ousseini, 37, returned from the southern city of Sabha with scarcely a penny to their name. The former said he was the victim of bandits on his route home, the latter that he sold his possessions to pay for tuberculosis treatment. They kill time by drinking tea and playing cards with others in the dusty streets of the handsome ochre city at the gateway to the desert. "Our mother sells pastries in order to put food in our mouths -- isn't that humiliating for men of our age?" said Ousseini. "In Libya I earned 50,000 CFA francs (75 euros) a week. I lived like a prince," said Mahamat Baba, who washed cars for a living and now shares a small room with seven cousins. "Here, I struggle to buy cigarettes," he said, adding that he often goes to bed with an empty stomach. Ibrahim Elhadj Ama, 39, who arrived back three months ago, talks about a "curse". "I was due to get married in July and my wife was to join me in Tripoli. Everything was cancelled because we have no money." Niger Prime Minister Brigi Rafini visited Agadez earlier this month, pledging "substantial" assistance to those returning from Libya. "He made the same promise in May and since then, nothing," said Ama. The city's new mayor Rhissa Afeltou has become alarmed at the numbers swelling the ranks of the unemployed. "The north is overflowing with potential farmers and agricultural workers, the state needs to provide these ex-immigrants with financial support," he said. As the recent arrivals attempt to settle back in, the flood of Nigeriens from Libya continues. With the arrival of every van crammed with bags and bundles, the vast car park at customs is transformed into a giant bazaar. Yahaya Oumarou, formerly a baker in Tripoli, has just sold two bicycles to pay for his fare to Goure, his village in the Zinder region. "My boss gave me them instead of my wages," he explained.