"Brooding on an alleyway bench in Agadez's Amarwatt district, Yassine Souleymane and his fellow countrymen returning from battle-torn Libya have no work and nothing to do. "We're useless," he laments.
Until recently the 43-year-old earned a good living over the border selling computer hardware in Tripoli.
Like 200,000 others who left Niger in search of their fortune, he fled home when fighting broke out between Moamer Kadhafi's regime and the rebels seeking to topple the defiant leader.
After 13 years he is back, and reduced to living for the past two months with his daughter and her soldier husband -- a change of circumstance which fills him with shame.
"It's embarrassing for me," he said in his native Housa language. "Business was going well in Libya and I was sending back 150,000 CFA francs (225 euros) to my family every month."
Dressed in a faded robe, Yassine's childhood friend, tailor Abdoul-Wahab Alaou, returned from Misrata in western Libya in April.
"I left six sewing machines there and credit notes and all my savings worth 300,000 CFA francs (450 euros). Now I'm a parasite," the 39-year-old said.
His concerned brother Ibrahim, with whom he is now living, added: "When he arrived he refused to work, hardly spoke and lost lots of weight.
"For the past five years he has been paying for our four young brothers' schooling".............READ MORE
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