that many Tuareg were given nationality papers easily in Libya under Ghaddafi’s government, and recruited into the Libyan army for deployment in both the Arab and sub-Saharan African theatres of Libyan foreign policy.239 Anxiety over the role of the Tuaregs in the Sahel and their doubtful loyalties led to them being treated with suspicion especially by Algeria, which responded at various times both by expulsion of refugees from conflicts in neighbouring countries, but also with efforts to mediate Tuareg rebellions in Niger and Mali in the 1960s and 1990s.240 The collapse of the Ghaddafi regime in Libya in 2011 greatly destabilised the countries to the south, including through the return of former fighters in Ghaddafi’s army, and by making weapons available from the suddenly unguarded Libyan arms stores. A regional and global Islamist agenda then profited from this resurgence of Tuareg demands – with appalling knock-on effects, including for those Tuaregs who had no wish to support an independent Tuareg state.241 Documentation is a critical problem for many Tuaregs who have no proof of identity or nationality even though they have been resident in country many years, and sometimes generations. As one Nigerien commented, “it outrages them” (ça les révolte) that they have no documentation from the Nigerien state, symptomatic of a generalised neglect: “it is only when Boko Haram comes that they notice us.”242 While Tuareg leaders freely admit that part of the problem is a lack of awareness of the need for or usefulness of birth registration and other documents, it is also the case that birth certificates and other documents have been difficult to obtain. Only with a recent push for birth registration supported by UNICEF has birth registration become more widespread among the Tuaregs in Niger. Equally, Tuareg refugees in Niger from the conflict in Mali reported that many among them had no documentation, including birth registration, since they did not see the need. Even though an identity card should in principle enable problem-free travel within Mali or across the border between Niger and Mali (their traditional zones of migration), police at the borders or at routine checkpoints would expect money in any event. Access to schools and other public facilities was so poor for the nomadic communities that there was little point in going through the procedures of registering births. Only in the refugee camp itself were births being systematically registered.243 Members of the Fulani/ Peul ethnic group also find themselves treated as presumptively “foreign” across the West African region, and report difficulties in obtaining passports and other documents. Though the Fulani have historically followed a nomadic lifestyle of transhumance with herds of cattle, and many still do so, others are settled for several generations in the same location, or migrate only within the borders of one country, yet still face resistance to the idea that they are nationals of that country. Fulani have also been the target of mass expulsions, often in response to clashes over land use rights: for example, in 1982, Sierra Leone expelled Fulani allegedly originating from Guinea; and Ghana expelled Fulani pastoralists in 1988/89 and again in 1999/2000; Senegal expelled Fulani also in 1989.244 Though outside the ECOWAS region, the Mbororo Fulani sub-group found in Cameroon and 239 See Pierre Boilley, Les Touaregs Kel Adagh — dépendances et révoltes : Du Soudan français au Mali contemporain, Paris : Karthala 1999. 240 See commentary by Mohand Salah Tari, “Tuareg : The tragedy of a forgotten people”, no date, http://www.amazighworld.org/studies/articles/forgotten_poeple.php, accessed 24 February 2014. 241 See, for example, “Mali: Avoiding Escalation”, Africa Report N°189, International Crisis Group, 18 July 2012. 242 Interview, Niamey, May 2014. 243 Interviews, refugee camp, Ayorou, Niger, May 2014. 244 Aderanti Adepoju, “The politics of international migration in post-colonial Africa, in Robin Cohen (ed.), The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge University Press, 1995; Steve Tonah, “The Politics of Exclusion: 72