A University on the Edge of the Sahara Struggles to Become an Intellectual Oasis

In Mauritania, the country's hopes are pinned to a desolate campus

By DANIEL DEL CASTILLO

Nouakchott, Mauritania

From this hot, dusty city, the desert seems to stretch to infinity. When the wind blows, sand slides down every street of this sprawling, haphazard collection of low-rise buildings, threatening to bury a place that is already...

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