Journeys Into the Unknown

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Pascale Harter introduces four memorable dispatches from 2017, with special insights into life around the world. Ben Zand reflects on the lies and the profits being spun from migrant routes across the Sahara desert. In Niger and Libya he met people desperate to escape war or poverty - and a great many others ready to exploit their dreams. Antonia Quirke is brought up short by a small reminder of the drug and gang violence plaguing Mexico: a mural of the disappeared, in a small and picturesque town. Tim Whewell gets into a battle of wits with a Russian border guard, along a disputed frontier with the territory of Abkhazia. And Carrie Gracie reveals what one extraordinary journey - over 12,000 kilometres along the modern version of China's Silk Road - has taught her about her colleagues, her profession... and the smell of camel. Photo: Migrants from West Africa wait in a room at a 'ghetto' in Agadez, northern Niger, on April 1, 2017, as they wait to go to Libya from where they will attempt to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean sea. (ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)