Dam Project threatens Sudan's Nubians 2009
The Sudanese government has been gradually damming up the Nile Valley near Ancient Nubia. The Kajbar and Merowe Dams and the yet to be built Dal and Shereik dams are part of a five dam reservoir and generate electricity for Sudan. It is one of the largest national projects like Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam. But the ongoing and planned construction has done more damage than help ease the water shortage on the country. The future Dal, Shereik and Karim Dam projects will lead to the flooding and permanent destruction of Ancient Nubia and Kush, the mother civilization that built up Ancient Egypt/Kemet (mother of the Egyptians/Kemetans), emerged from the foundations of Kush kingdom (still Sudan) and Axum Empires and Land of Punt (Somalia) as well as the West African Empires Songhai, Ghana, Saharan trade. Ancient Nubia and Egypt ruled each other respectively. Yes the Nubian people are still here and speaking Nubian language. Even the Sudanese Arabs are Nubians themselves and are the descendants of Ancient Nubia. Many Nubians who live in Karima and other towns who were dispossessed of their home towns and lands and resettled miles away from their ancestral towns by the Kajbar dam construction have protested for years against further dam construction. Nubian cultural, language and political activists and rights organizations inside and outside Sudan have condemned Sudanese government and the Arab League for supporting the garantuan dam projects at the expense of local people. Nubian organization such as Save Nubia and Nubia Project have protested over the past months at Saudi Embassy and . While the end result is to make the Nile Valley the breadbasket of Sudan and eventually the Arab World, the Dam construction as with the Three Gorges Dam in China has caused irreversible environmental damage to the local landscape and people. Like many indigenous people around the world, the Nubians in Southern Egypt and Sudan have a deep connection to their lands, culture, history, identity and water.
Nubians in Sudan today
Ancient Nubia, Kush it's importance to Africa and cultural identity
The Kajbar and Merowe Dams buried over 3,000 year old Nubian villages, farm lands and archeological sites and monuments along the Nile. Ancient Nubia is located in modern day Sudan and Southern Egypt. There are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt. Many pyramids became the basis of Nubian cities and towns, the most famous being at Merowe. When the Merowe Dam is built near the town of Karima which is not too far from Morow and the Ancient Nubian cities, many irreplacible Ancient Nubian archelogoical sites, pillars, some pyramids and towns and mounments of Nubian and Egyptian Phorarahs will be destroyed and lost by the dam. This is the same critical situation that faced the Northern part of Ancient Nubia in Southern Egypt when the Aswan Dam was built in 1964. At the time, the Aswan Dam was heralded as a modern marvel and ingenous way to aid in making Southern Egypt more fertile where the Nile had done for thousands of years. The engineers both Egyptian and foreign were not thinking of the long term consequences and what permanent displacement and cultural heritage lost means to the Nubian people then and now.
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