The jihadist group Boko Haram will not find more suitable conditions to thrive than those offered by Lake Chad. On the shores of this 2,000 km² body of water between Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad, climate, food, and economic insecurity are mixed with a null presence of governments and administrations.In 2015, about fifteen years after its birth in Nigeria, the group reaches the lake. It claims to want to fight social inequalities and corruption through a strict reading of Islam. With the promise of stable income and the possibility of marrying and starting a family, Boko Haram convinces a large number of young people to join the organization. The origin of the conflict in the area is precisely "in poverty and lack of opportunities," according to Josep Maria Royo, a researcher specializing in conflicts, peace, and security in Africa at the School for Peace Culture.

This week it was reported that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) had dismissed 18 workers after investigating several complaints from Sudanese refugee women and girls in Chad for sexual assault and exploitation. The news is not only an internal scandal but a major disgrace and the confirmation of a persistent reality: sexual violence pursues women even in environments of extreme vulnerability where they should be protected.

Reed Brody (Brooklyn, 1953) has spent his life defending human rights around the world and pursuing dictators throughout Africa and Central and South America, but also denouncing the despotic leaders of the West thanks to his work at Human Rights Watch and the United Nations. He collaborated with the victims of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and in Catch a dictator (Debate) explains the journey to condemn Chadian President Hissène Habré to life imprisonment. Brody spends much of the year in Barcelona with his partner, Catalan filmmaker Isabel Coixet.