Court ruling angers those displaced by River Nile dam

Hundreds of people who were displaced by the building of the Merowe dam in River Nile state years ago protested a Court's decision to deny any compensation to the affected on Thursday.

The demonstrators blocked the road from Atbara town in Sudan's north-eastern state to Khartoum for hours following the announcement that the government will not compensate their forced eviction, which happened seven years ago. Police and security forces had to break up the protest by force to intervene. This caused injuries amongst several protesters. At least seven of them were arrested.

A member of the government committee, Ali Osman Abdallah, later reported that security forces arrested nine alleged leaders of the protest inside their houses the following night.

The Merowe Dam was completed in 2009. The project doubled Sudan’s electricity generation, but displaced more than 50,000 people from the Nile Valley to arid desert locations. Protests were violently suppressed.

In October 2011, Dabanga reported that the Merowe dam had caused flooding of Emre area which left many Sudanese people displaced and submerged 35 mosques, 40 schools and a number of hospitals.