Tuareg schoolchildren from the town of Kidal rehearse Mali's national anthem in preparation for the upcoming national holiday.
Thomas Kern
A local religious teacher, known as a Marabu, teaches students to read and recite the Koran. Although most Tuareg practice Islam to some degree, they are not considered Arabic.
Thomas Kern
Youth discuss upcoming national day festivities at a community meeting in the town of Kidal. Young, unemployed men are currently the main source of recruits for armed groups that operate in the region.
Thomas Kern
A schoolhouse covered in graffiti stands abandoned in the region of Farache. The Tuareg have gained some autonomy over the past decades through gathering and using weapons.
Thomas Kern
The village of Gargandou is one of the oldest Tuareg villages and was populated even when most Tuareg tribes led nomadic lives throughout the year. During that time, it served as a teaching centre for children.
Thomas Kern
An abandoned car serves as a reminder of the Tuareg uprising in Mali during the mid and late 1990s.
Thomas Kern
This middle class Tuareg family lives in Mali's capital Bamako. Currently, most Tuaregs lead sedentary lives in the villages bordering the Sahara desert.
Thomas Kern
Children learn the Koran in a religious school.
Thomas Kern
A sandstorm approaches the small village of Tizicoré.
Thomas Kern
The Sahara region is one of the poorest and least developed parts of the planet. In 2012, more than 18 million people in the region were affected by famine.
Thomas Kern
It is prayer hour in the house of the local caretaker of the Segou water well. Segou is an important trading post and market town in the region.
Thomas Kern
Timbuktu is a historically important post along the trans-Saharan caravan route and was also a centre for the expansion of Islam in the 14th century. Today, the city is controlled by Islamist groups and has seen considerable unrest in the recent Mali conflict.
Thomas Kern
A young Tuareg wears a traditional indigo headscarf.
Thomas Kern
A wedding of the Songhai people - one of Mali's many ethnic groups - is held at the only remaining large hotel in Timbuktu.
Thomas Kern
A pick-up basketball game takes place in the village of Kidal.
Thomas Kern
An elderly Tuareg man sits at a roadside restaurant on the way to Kidal.
Thomas Kern
A local customs officer's home stands near Mali's border with Mauritania, which is very difficult to patrol effectively.
Thomas Kern
The community of Kidal discusses its contributions to the upcoming celebrations of Mali's national holiday.
Thomas Kern
The nomadic Tuareg people who live between Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya have been fighting for increased autonomy for more than 50 years. Their plight is closely linked to the crisis unfolding in northern Mali.
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Thomas Kern was born in Switzerland in 1965. Trained as a photographer in Zürich, he started working as a photojournalist in 1989. He was a founder of the Swiss photographers agency Lookat Photos in 1990. Thomas Kern has won twice a World Press Award and has been awarded several Swiss national scholarships. His work has been widely exhibited and it is represented in various collections.
Swissinfo.ch photographer Thomas Kern travelled to northern Mali to find these “blue men” of the desert, who have now largely given up their nomadic lifestyle. Kern visited the area between 2001 and 2004, before Islamic radicalists arrived in the region.
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