Ghat

Ghat stands where an oasis meets the caravan routes, and it has been a trading place for a very long time: the rock art of the mountains behind it records hunters, cattle herders, chariots and then camels, marking the Sahara's change from grassland to desert over thousands of years. Garamantian influence reached here from the north-east, and the town later became a link in the chain of desert settlements between the Niger bend, Ghadames and the Mediterranean.

By the 19th century Ghat was a Tuareg-run market town where caravans carrying slaves, gold, ivory, salt and cloth halted, under the authority of Tuareg confederations rather than any distant state, though Ottoman rulers of North Africa had claimed the region since the 17th century. European travellers passed through and described it, among them James Richardson, whose journeys of 1845–1846 left one of the fullest accounts of the town and its trade.

Italy took the Fezzan after 1912 but held the far south only intermittently; the fort on Koukemen hill above the old town dates from the colonial garrison, and French forces from Chad and Algeria were also present in the region during and after the Second World War, before it became part of independent Libya in 1951. In the late 20th century the Acacus rock art brought organised desert tourism, and Ghat became its base; that ended with the war of 2011, since when the town has lived with insecurity, border tension and isolation. Heavy rain flooded the town in June 2019.

Ghat is one of the centres of Tuareg life in Libya, and Tamasheq is spoken alongside Arabic. Tuareg society here belongs to a culture that spreads across southern Algeria, Niger and Mali, with its own script, Tifinagh, used for inscriptions and ornament, and with the men's veil, the tagelmust, worn indigo or white. Silversmithing, leatherwork and the making of saddles and camel gear are traditional crafts, and poetry and music — above all songs accompanied by the one-stringed imzad fiddle, played by women — carry much of the culture.

Kinship crosses the borders as naturally as the old trade routes did, and families in Ghat have relatives in Djanet in Algeria and further south. That has made the town a meeting place, and also exposed it to the politics of the frontier: border closures, smuggling and disputes over citizenship and control have all affected life here since 2011.

Hospitality is the desert rule: tea in three rounds, dates and a shared dish for a guest. Weddings and religious festivals bring camel racing, drumming and dancing, and the town's December festival gathers Tuareg communities and, before the war, outside visitors as well. Islam here has long had a Sufi colouring, and respect for elders and for the mountains' painted shelters is expected of anyone visiting them.

Ghat is a small town and the capital of its district, a thinly populated administrative area that reaches to the Algerian border. Most households depend on public salaries — administration, schools, the hospital, the police — along with date gardens, small trade and transport. The desert tourism that once employed guides, drivers and cooks has gone.

Distance defines daily life. Sabha, the nearest city of any size, is a long drive across the desert, and shortages of fuel, cash, medicines and spare parts are routine; power cuts are frequent and mobile and internet coverage patchy. Goods arrive by lorry from the north or informally across the border, and prices reflect the journey.

The old mud-brick town is largely empty, its families long since moved into concrete houses nearby, and its buildings decay quickly once roofs go. Summer days are organised around the heat, with business done early and late and the middle of the day spent indoors; in winter the evenings are cold enough for fires. The town's position on a frontier used by smugglers and armed groups keeps security uncertain, and residents describe the south as neglected by the governments in the north.

Food in Ghat is Saharan and plain, built around bread, dates, milk and meat. Taguella, the Tuareg flat bread, is cooked in the hot sand under embers, then broken into pieces and served with a sauce of meat, onion and spices — the dish most closely associated with the town's culture. Bazin, a stiff barley dough eaten from a shared dish with a lamb or vegetable sauce, and couscous steamed with meat and vegetables are common across Libya and eaten here too.

Dates are the harvest that matters. The gardens produce several varieties, eaten fresh or dried, pressed into syrup and used in sweets, and they keep well enough to have travelled with caravans. Goat and camel meat are eaten more than beef, milk is drunk fresh or soured, and dried meat has long been the food of desert journeys. Vegetables from the irrigated plots — tomatoes, onions, peppers, pumpkins — go into stews and sauces.

Tea is the ritual that frames every meeting: green tea boiled with sugar, poured from a height into small glasses to raise a froth, and served in three rounds, sometimes with mint or crushed peanuts. Coffee is less common than in the north. Alcohol is illegal in Libya, and in a town this conservative it is absent entirely.