Armed groups have spread across the Sahel, the vast band south of the Sahara, and attacks on villages now happen almost daily while national armies and international forces struggle to respond. This film travels to central Mali, homeland of the Dogon people, to follow the Dan Na Ambassagou militia, farmers and hunters who patrol the Dogon plateau with old rifles and inherited tradition rather than modern equipment. The crew talks to men who recently deserted armed groups, who describe how these organizations recruit and operate from the inside. Across the border in Mauritania, the film gets rare access to the army's Special Intervention Groups during a live border operation and to a desert patrol unit that covers remote terrain by dromedary. Shot on location in extreme heat, the film moves between village defenders, deserters, and state forces to show how communities left without reliable protection have armed themselves, and what that improvised defense actually looks like on the ground.