Political geography shines a particular light on the crisis in the Sahel and Sahara. It highlights the role of natural conditions in the vulnerability and fragility of its populations, who must move around to survive. It reveals the weight of history, poorly understood yet sturdily carried by today’s generation. It focuses on a more worrisome than comforting population growth, and on governments’ failed governance and inability to provide security. In this context, we wonder: do the spatial reconfigurations we are witnessing arise from a desire to make a more radical Islam prevail, or do they result from organized crimes perpetrated by warlords, jihadist or otherwise?