The Ennedi Massif

The Ennedi is a continental sandstone plateau laid down some 500 million years ago, then uplifted and carved by water. For this desert was once green: between 10,000 and 4,000 BCE, the 'Green Sahara' ran with rivers and grazed with herds. The people who lived here left thousands of paintings and engravings on the rock walls — giraffes, cattle, hunters, then camels — recording the Sahara's slow desiccation.

When the rains withdrew, water remained trapped in the deepest canyons as gueltas. These permanent pools saved a population of Nile crocodiles, now completely isolated more than 1,000 km from their nearest relatives — a living witness to the three great humid periods of the prehistoric Sahara.

The people of the Ennedi are a mosaic of Muslim tribes, nomadic and settled, living from herding and trade. The dialect spoken is Gorane. The massif receives a brief but heavy monsoon each year — around 200 mm — which refills the gueltas and greens the wadis for a few weeks.

In 2016 UNESCO inscribed the 'Ennedi Massif: Natural and Cultural Landscape' on the World Heritage List as a mixed property, for both its geological formations and its rock art.