The short dusty street in Arlit, a mining town in northern Niger, is a sad and seedy place.
Faces of young women, many of them from Nigeria, appear in the cracks of doorways, offering their bodies in exchange for money.
Prostitution is discreetly flourishing here, a once-quiet town that has been turned upside-down by a population influx.
A major cause is a gold rush that has sucked in fortune seekers from southern Niger and the country’s neighbours. But there is also a buildup of migrants from across West Africa, who pass through this crossroads town on their desperate trek to Europe.
The inflow is creating economic and social strains in a remote and conservative region whose culture prides itself on welcoming strangers.
“Cohabitation with non-Muslims is a bit difficult, especially with these ‘free women’,” said Issa, a trader, using the local term for sex workers. “It’s giving the neighbourhood a bad name.”
Nadya, a prostitute in her thirties with two children, said, “We don’t have any problems with people here.”
She added, “I do it for them — I really need the money.”
Arlit lies in harsh terrain a couple of hundred kilometres (around 120 miles) from Algeria’s southern border, between the Sahara and the eastern rim of the Air mountains.
The gold rush has helped cause the population of towns in the Agadez region, which includes Arlit, to double in a decade, officials estimate. But there is also a huge transient population of West African migrants desperate to get to Europe to start a new life.
Many are in Arlit on their way to the Algerian border, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) away — and many are stranded in the town after being sent back by Algeria.
A Togolese couple, Ickbal and Yasmine, queued for help at a centre set up by the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Every week hundreds of migrants expelled from Algeria arrive in the Nigerien border village of Assamaka, about 200 kilometres from Arlit
“I have been asking for food for my fiancee from our Nigerien brothers. They are very kind, but we can’t do this all the time.”