A young boy whose family was displaced by the floods stands at a school in Niamey, Niger, Aug. 21, 2012.
Between July and September, unprecedented flooding of the Niger River in the Tillabéri, Dosso and Zinder regions — as well as the capital, Niamey — displaced more than 530,000 people. The water’s impact — cattle were killed, tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, and significant portions of crops were lost — was compounded by a dire food crisis in the Sahel and refugees from conflict in neighboring Mali.