The Ennedi Massif north Chad is one of the sites recently added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. At its latest meeting, 21 new sites were added (12 cultural, six natural and three mixed), bringing the total to 1,052 sites in 165 countries. These are always places worth travelling to!
The Ennedi Massif is located in the northeast of Chad, close to the borders with Libya and Sudan. An enormous sandstone formation surrounded by desert and difficult to reach, it remains one of the planet’s remotest places, without roads or settlements. People lived here in the past, as shown by the intriguing cave paintings found in its caves and canyons. The area has been inhabited since at least the Holocene, and some paintings date to 3,000 BC.
On rock walls, in caves and canyons surrounded by a sea of sand, images depict riders on horses and camels, cattle and other herbivores. At Niola Doa, delicate groups of women more than two metres tall bear abstract tattoo patterns. Millions of painted and engraved images form one of the largest rock-art collections in the Sahara desert.
Over thousands of years, water and wind have sculpted this plateau into gorges, valleys and unique landscapes of natural arches, stone pillars, peaks and ravines. Some arches reach spectacular dimensions, such as the Arch of Aloba, which reaches 120 metres high and resembles a giant doorway into a mysterious world.
In the largest canyons of the Ennedi Massif, permanent water sources are vital to the ecosystem and to the survival of wildlife, plants and human communities. Camel caravans and wild animals drink here, always alert, because among the fauna of Ennedi one notable large carnivore is the West African crocodile.
For these reasons and more, in 2016 UNESCO inscribed the Ennedi Massif on the list of mixed natural and cultural sites, alongside Khangchendzonga National Park in India and the Ahwar biodiversity refuge and archaeological landscape of southern Iraq’s Mesopotamian cities. The Ennedi Massif hides big and interesting surprises.