Jihad or exile: Lake Chad's abandoned youth face impossible choice

Adam Issa struggled to explain why he quit his fisherman's job to join one of the many jihadist groups holed up in the hundreds of islands of Lake Chad.

"Some of my friends who joined Boko Haram told me that I would make a lot of money with them," the baby-faced 20-year-old said, eyes fixed firmly downwards.

At the end of another rainy season where he came home from the lake with his nets empty, Issa set off in his canoe and crossed the border on the water to join his friends at a jihadist camp in Niger, without telling his family.

His story is far from unique on the shores of Lake Chad, which straddles Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria at the point where west and central Africa meet.

Dire economic opportunities have made the region's struggling young people easy targets for jihadist recruiting sergeants, and pushed others onto a perilous path of exile in the hope of making money down faraway gold mines.

Once arrived at the camp, Issa spent a month and a half in training, learning to fire a 12.7 mm calibre heavy machine gun, before abruptly fleeing to return to his home in the Fouli region in Chad.

On what fighting he saw while a member of Boko Haram, he remained silent.

'Turn into bandits'

Since his return from Boko Haram's embrace, Issa has made his home at the Maison des femmes (House of women) in the town of Bol, which today shelters some 40 repentant jihadists.

Bol is the capital of Chad's Lac region, an underdeveloped part of an already underdeveloped nation.

Its masses of out-of-work young men have proven a never-ending source of manpower for the armed groups stalking the lake's shores.

Among them is Boko Haram, which has sown terror around Lake Chad for some 15 years.

Founded in Nigeria at the beginning of the new millennium, the Islamist group achieved international infamy after the 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls, most of them Christians, in the north of the country.

Today it faces stiff competition from the rival Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) group, which splintered off from Boko Haram in 2016.

While the two are locked in infighting over ideological differences, both Boko Haram and ISWAP have mounted increasingly brazen attacks on villages and military bases in recent months.

Tahir Lool, 28, who is unemployed, sits while posing for a photograph in Baga Sola, Lake Chad Province, Chad, on June 25, 2025. (Credit: AFP)

With violence mounting and the economy at a standstill, many across Lake Chad believe they have been abandoned by the state.

"We have nothing to eat and as a result of this crisis our young people are turning into bandits," lamented Abba Ali Abakura, a traditional chief in the north of Chad's Lac region.

Feeling "disgusted and overwhelmed", the 57-year-old also said he fears that "all the able-bodied men will leave the region" in the hope of striking gold at the mines of north Chad or elsewhere in the Sahel.

"Only children and elderly people will remain."

Gold rush

That prospect of a golden ticket to a better life is exactly what pushed Mahamat Ali Abdallah to leave Chad.

At less than $12 a month, his baker's wage in Baga Sola was far from enough to finance his dreams of getting married, having children and building a house.

His thirst for gold led him first to Niger and then onwards north to Algeria to become a prospector, braving the hard labour and often dangerous conditions.

Down the mines, he spent his days digging away at the bottom of narrow pits, which could reach a depth of up to 30 metres (100 feet) below the surface, in search of the precious mineral.

"One day the earth collapsed on top of us," he said, showing videos of his fellow labourers.

"I managed to escape unscathed but my friend had his bones broken."

During his two years of tough toil, he sent half the money he made to his family and used the rest for his living expenses at the site.

Having returned to Chad without a penny, he said he would leave again in search of more work.

"Better to take that risk than to continue to live in poverty," he said.

Sparse schooling and a lack of teachers have made the issue worse, with children forced to work in the fields as their parents cannot afford to send them to class in the cities, humanitarian organisations warn.

Hassimi Djieni, project manager for the aid group Humanity & Inclusion, estimated there was a "ratio of one teacher for every 500 to 600 students" in the region.

"The authorities have to understand that when you boost education, it creates a barrier against young people joining armed groups," said Djieni.