Heads up high
Beads and bobbles shine with colour on the headdress of 17-year-old Balkissa Maiga, a girl in the northern Malian town of Gao.
Headdresses like hers were traditionally worn in the area by elite figures on special occasions. However, strict limitations were placed on their use during the nine-month rule of radical Islamists in Gao, which only ended this January with the arrival of French and Malian troops.
Fourteen-year-old Fady Dicko wears a traditional Tuareg headdress crafted by Hally Bara.
Aminata Toure, 10, wears another of Bara's creations.
She wears a traditional Songhai headdress.
Fifteen-year-old Madinatou Soumailou Toure uses her phone while wearing one of the headpieces.
Nafissatou Toure, 7, wears another headdress.
Beads adorn Fady Dicko's headdress.
Balkissa Maiga, 17, wears a particularly colourful headpiece.
She looks up with the beads framing her face.
Fatoumata Toure, 15, wears one of Bara's headdresses.
Bara ties one of her headdresses around a girl's head.
