Educating their children is the key to the future for Tuareg nomads who are losing their traditional way of life.
However, in Tazerzait, a remote area of northern Niger, the only school was seized by the army and turned into a barracks to fight the Tuareg rebellion.
Niger's civil war is damaging its children, and destroying the potential of the country as a whole.
Al Jazeera's May Welsh reports from northern Niger on the endangered minds of the Sahara's future.