For refugees wanting to return home, Timbuktu is every bit as remote as its name suggests. This is Mopti a long day's drive by bus from the capital, Bamako, and still several days away from Timbuktu by boat. Since the French army secured the north of the country from jihadist rebels, refugees have started to trickle back.
SHOPKEEPER (Translation): What’s your name?
IDRISSA MAIGA (Translation): Idrissa Maiga. Sell me two bags.
Idrissa was my guide and translator when I first travelled to Timbuktu in 2008. He fled his home town last April, soon after the rebels arrived and he has been living in exile ever since. Now he's offered to take me back with him. For most refugees, the only affordable way to travel from here to Timbuktu is by pinasse - a motorised canoe.
IDRISSA MAIGA (Translation): Hi, my friend. I’ll have a seat close to you.
This one is dangerously overloaded.
REPORTER: How do you feel about travelling on a boat like this, Idrissa?
IDRISSA MAIGA: This boat is very, very, uh, small boat and there is no shade. Oh, it's difficult to get to Timbuktu now.
Our boat barely sits above the water line and it's leaking.
MAN (Translation): It’s not good.
REPORTER: The boat's not gonna sink?
IDRISSA MAIGA: I don't think so. I don't think so.
Idrissa can't swim, so perhaps we were lucky that our trip was cut short. At an army checkpoint, soldiers told me I wasn't authorised to travel downriver and ordered Idrissa and me off the boat. So, the next day, we set off again for Timbuktu, this time by car. The road was only opened to civilians a few days ago and there are still reports of jihadist attacks in nearby villages.
Most vehicles we see are in military convoys. Everywhere, we found reminders of the fighting between French forces and the rebels. Security is shared between the French and Malian armies. There are frequent checkpoints. Finally, we rejoin the Niger River. Timbuktu lies a short distance away, on the other side.
IDRISSA MAIGA: Now it's almost nine months that I left Timbuktu. Yes, nine months. And I miss Timbuktu so much. It's been a long time I have been some place where I don't know -very happy to come back.
MAN (Translation): your friend is coming.
IDRISSA MAIGA (Translation): How are you big brother? How is the family? Be well.
Idrissa's family returned to Timbuktu last week and found their home had been looted and vandalised. For now, they're staying in a friend's house.
IDRISSA MAIGA: Yes. So, when I was travelling, I found out our house, they take everything.
The family home was targeted by the jihadists because Idrissa worked with Western tourists.
IDRISSA MAIGA: Our bed, it's gone. Everything we have is gone, so...
REPORTER: You must have been so upset?
IDRISSA MAIGA: Very upset, yeah. But also very happy that the army, French and Mali, fight them to go out, so now we can come back home and we can have the real feel.
CHILDREN (Translation): Mali, France! Mali, France!
French soldiers on patrol are greeted like heroes here. Most people resented the rebels and the fanatical interpretation of Islam that they imposed, an interpretation that went from whipping people for dressing immodestly and amputating the hand of a thief, to covering up faces on the town's hand-painted signs.
Timbuktu has its own proud and unique place in Islamic history. And this is what I came here to report on five years ago. The tattered manuscripts I was shown inside this chest were part of the earliest written record from sub-Saharan Africa. Some dated back to the 13th century, old copies of the Koran as well as books about astronomy, medicine and agriculture.
MAN (Translation): They are very important because they come from our ancestors who were in the desert.
This was just one of many collections scattered around Timbuktu, ranging from a few metal trunks in a shed to large libraries containing tens of thousands of manuscripts.
SALEM OULD ELHAJ, HISTORIAN (Translation): We have known the art of writing since the 11th century. We started writing before certain European countries, certain Westerners.
In 2008, I met local historian Salem Ould Elhaj, he explained that Timbuktu was once a vital link in trade routes connecting Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
SALEM OULD ELHAJ (Translation): I would have liked to have lived in the 16th century. It was an intellectual city, an educated city, a very populous city, a city with Koranic schools and universities. It was a city active in international trade - it was Timbuktu’s Golden Age. I would have liked to have lived then.
As I found on my first visit, much was being done to try and preserve what remained of this golden age. 30,000 manuscripts were being catalogued at the largest library, the Ahmed Baba Institute. It was also getting a new home, thanks to a $7.5 million from the South African government.
After centuries of neglect, it finally looked like the manuscripts were in safe hands, but then, in April last year, towns in Mali's north started falling to an alliance of separatist rebels and militant Islamists. News surfaced that historic monuments, the tombs of revered saints, were doing destroyed. When Timbuktu was finally liberated, the world wanted to know the fate of the manuscripts.
ABDOULAYE CISSE (Translation): Hello, how are you?
MAN (Translation): Mr Edmond Mulet, UN Assistant Secretary for peace keeping operations is here on an official visit.
ABDOULAYE CISSE (Translation): My pleasure.
The jihadists actually lived in the Ahmed Baba Institute for almost nine months. It’s acting director, Abdoulaye Cisse, shows his guest what is they did on the day they left town.
ABDOULAYE CISSE (Translation): Here are the ashes. …. You see? The wind blew the ashes away.
EDMOND MULET (Translation): How sad….
ABDOULAYE CISSE (Translation): Those are the conservation boxes - they emptied them and burnt everything. We counted them – we lost 4,203 manuscripts here that night.
EDMOND MULET (Translation): It is a real tragedy.
ABDOULAYE CISSE (Translation): Yes, it is.
EDMOND MULET (Translation): It’s a pity, it is a cultural violation. Let’s not forget that behind every letter, every word, every sentence, there was a thought. Someone wrote, thought it over, transmitted it. It’s an enormous loss.
ABDOULAYE CISSE (Translation): An enormous loss, yes.
ABDEL KADER HAIDARA (Translation): When the rebels entered Timbuktu, the city became unsafe, there were a lot of robberies and we started worrying about the manuscripts.
Abdel Kader Haidara owns the largest private manuscript collection in Timbuktu - The Mama Haidara library. From Bamako, he helped coordinate the astonishing rescue for tens of thousands of manuscripts from Timbuktu, including those from the Ahmed Baba Institute.
ABDEL KADER HAIDARA (Translation): It’s a very difficult job – it must be done collectively, one person can’t be doing it alone.
Abba Alhadi, the caretaker at the old institute, played a key role in spiriting away the written treasures. Every evening, his son would carefully pack the manuscripts in their conservation boxes inside sacks that usually contain rice or flour. Abba Alhadi would stand guard outside to see if anyone was coming.
ABBA ALHADI (Translation): If I heard a car coming, I give them a signal. Once they finished filling the bags, I brought the cart.
The bags were placed on carts and donkeys before being distributed to trusted families, other manuscript owners in Timbuktu. It took three weeks to remove them all. It was a race against time, because the jihadists knew the manuscripts were here.
ABBA ALHADI (Translation): It was hard because they were always armed when they came asking about the manuscripts. When we transported the manuscripts, we had our hearts in our hands. Sometimes we felt safe, sometimes we didn’t.
The manuscripts were then transferred to metal trunks that were smuggled out of Timbuktu by donkey, river boat and car, right under the noses of the jihadists. The scale of the challenge was enormous.
ABDEL KADER HAIDARA (Translation): Bear in mind that we moved over 2500 trunks from Timbuktu to other regions. You can’t put more than two or three trunks in a vehicle.
The librarians had soon brought up all the trunks in Timbuktu and Mopti. They then bought sheet metal and had more trunks made. The jihadists never knew what was going on. Funding for the clandestine operation was provided by a small group of governments and charities from around the world. It wasn't cheap.
ABDEL KADER HAIDARA (Translation): We need two people to accompany them from Timbuktu to their final destination. That is one thing! You also have many checkpoints to go through, at each checkpoint they open the trunks, they remove the manuscripts from the trunks – the manuscripts are very fragile. So what do you do? You have to pay. You need to pay to get them just to look and close the trunk. So it cost a huge amount of money, it was very, very expensive.
So, where are the manuscripts now? Although the story of their rescue has been made public, none of the libraries have permitted journalists to see their smuggled treasure - until today.
MAN (Translation): This is Mr Mohamed al-Qadi Maiga, who looked after shipping our manuscripts from Timbuktu to Bamako. This is the treasure he managed to save from the jihadists claws.
This small room contains more than 30,000 priceless manuscripts belonging to the Ahmed Baba Institute. And this is the mild-mannered librarian, who, together with the two security guards, packed them in these sacks and trunks.
MOHAMED AL-QADI MAIGA (Translation): It was very dangerous but I was not afraid. I did it without any regrets. But when it was finished then I said, “If the jihadists got me, they could cut off my hand or feet or even kill me. Because they will say he’s a thief.”
It was the French army who liberated Timbuktu from the rebels. But it was the librarians, people prepared to risk their lives for the written word, who saved the city's history from those who would have seen it go up in smoke.
MOHAMED AL-QADI MAIGA (Translation): I feel very proud and happy because this is not just for Africa, it’s for the world. Because there’s history and everything here, so if you save something that belongs to the world, it makes you happy inside. Every time I see them I’m happy.
ANJALI RAO: And you can see Amos' original story from the 2008 about the Timbuktu manuscripts on our website, along with most of our other stories from recent years.
Reporter/Camera
AMOS ROBERTS
Producers
DONALD CAMERON
Fixer
IDRISSA MAIGA
Editor
WAYNE LOVE
Translations/Subtitling
ODILE BLANDEAU
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN
Additional still courtesy of D INTL/SAVAMA DCI/GAMMA