Original version

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

Migrated podcast image for: Outlook

Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

Outlook: Saving the songs of the Sahara

Magazines & Reviews

Fadimata Walet Oumar performs in 2012. She smiles broadly and has a microphone in front of her

08/06/2021 GMT

Saving the songs of the Sahara

BBC World Service - Outlook, Saving the songs of the Sahara

The defiant life of desert music pioneer Fadimata Walet Oumar

Fadimata Walet Oumar founded a globally-acclaimed band when she was forced to flee her home in northern Mali and ended up in a refugee camp.

Fadimata Walet Oumar learned how to sing and dance in northern Mali under the light of the desert moon. Her people, the Tuaregs, traditionally lived as nomads on the fringes of the Sahara but successive wars, droughts and famines have fundamentally changed their lives. However her love of music never waned. As a teenager, Fadimata was given the nickname Disco after winning dance battles on the streets of Timbuktu. In 1995 she created a band called Tartit with other women who had been forced to flee into refugee camps due to conflict. It was the first woman-led group in the burgeoning desert music scene and received global acclaim. In 2012, Tuareg culture was put into peril when Islamist militants took over northern Mali and banned music. Fadimata had to flee her homeland for the third time in her life but vowed to return. 

Viggó Sigurðsson is a rescue man in the Icelandic coast guard. It's a treacherous job - facing roaring winds, rolling seas and ferocious blizzards. And it's Viggo's job to go out in this weather - he drops out of the side of a helicopter and attempts to save people from the sea, the top of volcanos and cracks in glaciers. Saskia Edwards went to meet him in 2017, when this story was first broadcast.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Picture: Fadimata Walet Oumar performs in 2012
Credit: -/AFP via Getty Images

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Outlook

Saving the songs of the Sahara

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

About BBC World Service