The story
Festival a Sahel Ouvert in Mboumba/Fouta region
Festival a Sahel Ouvert is a long-running music and culture festival held in Mboumba, a village in Senegal's Fouta region along the Senegal River valley. Running for well over a decade, it has featured major Senegalese and Sahelian artists including Youssou Ndour and Wasis Diop, celebrating and promoting the culture of northern Senegal's river communities.
Fouta, the region tracing the Senegal River's course through the country's arid far north, is home to the Halpulaar, Fulani-speaking communities whose agricultural and pastoral traditions have long depended on the river's seasonal floods, and whose cultural profile within Senegal has historically been overshadowed by the more internationally visible traditions of Dakar and Casamance.