73

The Africans who migrate towards the Maghreb and Europe via the Sahara since 1990 do not reactivate the old caravan roads. Rather, these movements fit into the continuity of the migratory flows from the Sahel towards Libya, which are both older and more significant as far as number is concerned, and yet lesser known. Dissociating these two movements makes it possible to understand better how the contemporary trans-Saharan migrations quicklyreach that extensive level. From the example a vast space between Libya, Chad and Sudan, we will try to understand how the nomads of yesterday and those of today live in cities created by the States, and how urban functions and identities are redefined by the movement. It is the entire geography of the partitioned Sahara that is called into question by these new circulations, as well as a better understanding of a network-like Sahara.