Building a road across the Sahara

Work has begun on a new "Trans-Sahara" road, linking Morocco - and beyond that Europe - to Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos.

Existing roads across the Sahara are prone to being covered in sand and armed bandits operate in some areas.

There may soon be a more comfortable way of driving from Paris to Dakar

Now the first stones have been laid on a 470km road along the Atlantic Coast between the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, and the northern port of Nouadhibou.

Roads already exist between Nouadhibou and the Moroccan city of Tangiers, and between Nouakchott and the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

So, it will then be possible to drive from Tangiers through to Dakar but the route from Dakar to Lagos is not clear.

The Mauritanian stretch of the road costs $70m and will replace a track over the shifting sand dunes of the Sahara desert.

Ambitious

Isolated fishing villages in Mauritania hope the new road will provide economic benefits by improving their access to markets, reports Reuters news agency.

It will also improve access to the renowned bird sanctuary of the Banc d'Arguin National Park, near Nouadhibou.

The current road is often covered in sand

The "Trans-Sahara" road from Tangiers to Lagos is an extremely ambitious project.

Crossing borders is notoriously slow and bureaucratic in many parts of Africa.

And West Africa has plenty of conflict zones.

The road from Nouadhibou to Tangiers runs right next to the disputed territory of Western Sahara, where the Polisario Front is demanding independence from Morocco.

Two years ago, drivers in the Paris-Dakar rally had to be airlifted across this section after Polisario threatened to attack them.

Traffic blocked

South of Dakar, it has not been announced whether the road will follow the coastline - through the conflict in Liberia - or whether a road will be built to Bamako in Mali, from where it is already possible to drive to Lagos.

In addition to the dangers of armed attack is the possibility of local disputes causing mayhem.

This is currently the case in Gambia and Senegal, where taxi-drivers have blocked cross-border traffic.

Instead of taking a single taxi from Dakar to the southern Senegalese city of Ziguinchor, passing through The Gambia, travellers now need to take four different vehicles.

If the new "Trans-Sahara" road is ever completed, a major change in the attitude of many customs and immigration officials will be needed if driving from Tangiers to Lagos is ever to become a realistic alternative to transporting goods by sea or passengers by air.