Atop a long train in Africa, heading for change

CHOUM, Mauritania, Dec 26 (Reuters) Kneeling beneath glittering desert stars, two men pray toward the east as their turbans flutter in the wind atop a giant iron ore train snaking slowly across the Sahara.

''La ilaha illal lahou, la ilaha illal lahou,'' chants the shorter of the two, a teenage boy, smiling despite the storm of iron ore dust which stains his white headscarf: ''Allah is great, we owe devotion to him alone.'' He and his companion, Hassan, are travelling from the town of Choum in Mauritania's barren interior to the port of Nouadhibou, on West Africa's Atlantic coast, to visit relatives. They bring a few bundles of possessions, wrapped in sheets.

''Now you can say you have been on the world's longest train,'' said Hassan, nursing a cigarette against the wind.

More than four decades in service, the train stretches more than 2.5 kilometres but is no longer the world's longest: iron ore trains in Western Australia can be three times as long. But Mauritanians, proud of their Islamic state, still call it that.

The railway is a lifeline for one of the world's poorest and most sparsely populated countries, which straddles black and Arab Africa. Now some Mauritanians hope recent political change and new oil production are taking them to a better life.

Too poor to pay 9.21 dollar for a seat in the passenger compartment, the men have climbed on top of one of the scores of wagons carrying ore from the iron mines at Zouerat to the coast: an arduous journey of more than 640 km.

Other figures also dot the tops of the wagons as the train stretches across the Sahara. A few are poor migrants from Africa's interior heading for the port with the dream of reaching Spain's Canary Islands.

Huddled under a single blanket with three strangers, Hassan seeks shelter from the bitter cold and the soot. When the train slows, the heavy wagons collide with a sound like rolling thunder, jolting the men from fitful sleep.

Travelling at a maximum of 50 kilometres per hour, the trip takes around 14 hours and the black iron ore dust works its way into their clothing, eyes and mouths.

''The train carries illegal migrants or people transporting wares to sell,'' said Baba Ould Sidi Lamine, sitting outside his shop in Choum's sandy square before the train's departure. ''But if you do not have 2,500 ouguiya to travel in the passenger wagon, you have nothing at all.'' TRANSITION The railway entered service in 1961, just a year after the vast desert country gained independence from France. Then newly discovered ore mines embodied the new republic's hopes for prosperity, but fluctuating world prices, economic mismanagement and a series of coups left Mauritania mired in poverty.

Iron accounted for over 50 percent of exports last year, from a country twice the size of France but with just 3 million people.

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