Taoudenni

Taoudenni, also written Taoudeni, Taoudénit or Taudeni, is a remote salt mining center in the desert region of northern Mali, 664 kilometres, or 413 miles, north of Timbuktu, and the capital of the Taoudénit Region. The salt is dug by hand from the bed of an ancient salt lake, cut into slabs and carried either by truck or by camel to Timbuktu. The camel caravans, called azalai, that leave Taoudenni are some of the last that still operate in the Sahara Desert. In the late 1960s, under the regime of Moussa Traoré, a prison was built at the site and its inmates were forced to work in the mines; the prison was closed in 1988.