Khartoum security shut down anti-dam meeting in club

Security agents sealed off a community club house in Khartoum to prevent a mass gathering in opposition of the Kajbar dam project in the area on Thursday.

The Committee against the Kajbar and Dal dams said that the security force closed El Mahas Club and ordered the people to leave, in a statement issued yesterday. Committee chairman Emad El Mirghani has been summoned by the security apparatus.

The committee's secretary, Ashraf Abdel Wadud, told Radio Dabanga that the aim of the public meeting on Thursday was to inform the people of the region about the developments of the dam project. The Sudanese Parliament recently passed an agreement on the dams with Saudi Arabia.

“People crowded around the club and refused to leave,” Wadud said. He pointed to the adherence of the people from areas that may be affected by the dams.

These events followed the Parliament's passing of a framework agreement with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. They agreed to construct Kajbar, Dal, and El Shireik dams in Sudan's Northern State.

For years, the dam projects witness the opposition by people who claim to be affected by them. Four people were shot dead by police in Kajbar during protests in 2007, and three people were killed during protests against the Merowe Dam in Amri area in April 2006.

On 15 November last year, the Popular Committee Against the Kajbar Dam accused the Sudanese government of seeking to exterminate the Nubian people and their civilization. A week before, the Association of Nubians warned that the construction of the two dams will wipe out more than 7,000 years of Nubian civilisation