In late 2011, thousands of Tuareg workers and fighters, many of them mercenaries for slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, return to their Saharan homeland in Niger and Mali. Having lost access to the country that was their only source of livelihood, they find little more than crushing poverty, hunger and drought back home. Barely able to feed their children amidst total state neglect, the men launch a rebellion to found their own country.