Police summon anti-dam activists in northern Sudan

On Tuesday, the police in Fareeg in northern Sudan summoned five members of the Higher People’s Committee Against the Kajbar Dam on charges of rioting and disturbing the public order during a demonstration on 13 February.

“The members of the Committee Against the Kajbar Dam only joined a peaceful demonstration against the construction of the dam,” Mohamed Mustafa Mokhtar, the media officer of the Committee, told Radio Dabanga.

“The police recorded the names and ages of the Committee’s chairman, Ezzeldin Idris, secretary Osman Ibrahim, deputy secretary Fegeir Nasreldin, and members Dirar Ali Daoud and El Jeili Osman, and then released them on bail,” he reported. “No one was questioned regarding the charges made by agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service.”

Mokhtar called on “all Sudanese to stand up and protest the construction of the Dal, Kajbar, and El Shereik dams in northern Sudan, as the matter concerns all the people in the country. We need to halt the next threats to northern Sudan”.

Protests intensify

The authorities responded harshly to protests held in the past years against the three dams, planned to be built at the Nile’s second, third, and fifth cataract.

After the announcement in early November last year that the construction of the dams will be completed with Saudi Arabian funding, the Nubian people are raising their voices again. The Association of Nubians warned that the construction of the two dams will wipe out more than 7,000 years of Nubian civilisation, and called for a large campaign against the dams in Sudan and abroad.

Several Nubians in northern Sudan have warned of the transformation of the region into ‘another Darfur’ if the government continues with the construction of the dams.

According to International Rivers the Kajbar Dam will displace more than 10,000 people and submerge an estimated 500 archaeological sites. The Dal Dam, on the second cataract, will displace at least 5,000 people.