Members of Mali's nomadic Bozo ethnic group, who dominate the fish trade on the Niger River, are increasingly settling in towns in the face of insecurity in the Sahel.

There are hundreds of ethnic groups in the semi-arid African region, but the Bozo people have traditionally occupied a specific niche.

Along with the Somonos, they were long the only people to navigate the Niger where it flows through the Sahel.

"We were the masters of the waters," said Ousmane Djebare Djenepo, a Bozo who heads the fishermen's federation in the inner delta of the Niger River, in central Mali.

He added that members of the group believe that spirits inhabit the waterway.

Thought to be endogamous and to number in the low hundreds of thousands, Bozo fisherman embark on seasonal fishing trips aboard traditional wooden canoes known as pirogues.

These fishing campaigns can last for up to six months, according to Malian researcher Salif Togola.

The fishermen travel the inlets of the delta's vast floodplains, but can also follow the river -- the third-largest in Africa -- to any of the six countries through which it flows.

But Mali's brutal jihadist conflict has complicated the Bozo tribe's traditional way of life.

The government has been struggling to quell an Islamist insurgency that first emerged in the north in 2012, before spreading to the centre and to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

One of the conflict's bloodiest battlegrounds is the ethnic mosaic of central Mali, where much of the countryside lies outside of government control.

The export of fish, which is smoked in river ports by Bozo women, has long been the lifeblood of the region's economy.

A fish trader in central Mali's capital Mopti, who requested anonymity to protect his safety, said that the lawlessness now meant that commercial success was a question of luck.

"If your cargo runs into people who want to make mischief, you lose everything," he said.

The trader added that fishermen are also struggling to compete with fish imports from Asia.

Many have quit their traditional occupation and settled on the banks of the Niger, or in regional towns such as Mopti or Djenne, he said.

In the capital Bamako too, hundreds of fishermen have settled in camps along the banks of the river, which is becoming more polluted as more people move into the city.

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