The Manasir of Sudan

The Merowe dam

The Merowe dam, located on the Nile about two hundred miles north of Khartoum, is the largest dam project currently being built in Africa. The two hundred foot high dam will create a one hundred mile-long reservoir. The main purpose of the project is to generate electricity for Sudan's cities and the petroleum industry.

Other dams on the Nile have had serious impacts on the environment. Their reservoirs have silted up and withheld valuable nutrients from agriculture and fisheries in the downstream areas. An environmental impact assessment for Merowe was conducted, but an independent review of the study by a Swiss group found the study inadequate.

Merowe is partly constructed, and will ultimately displace roughly 70,000 of the largely self-sufficient Manasir people, a riverine tribe that has long lived in the area being flooded. Hamdab and Amri tribespeople are being displaced as well. The people of this isolated area live in small farming villages along the Nile, where they grow dates and other crops. The majority of these farmers would like to stay in the area and live along the banks of the new lake (reservoir) that will be created by the dam, but the government is instead relocating them to the Nubian desert and making their lands available to others.

The Manasir are not consulted

When the project was first started, issues relating to resettlement choices and compensation were unilaterally decided without consulting the affected communities. In fact, the critical issues concerning the future of the affected communities have been determined by a number of presidential decrees.

The communities claim that in order to avoid criticism of this unjust decision-making process, the Sudanese Dam Authority (SDA) handpicked a few locals and appointed them as the representatives of the communities, and then obtained their "approval" of what the SDA had already decided. This has allowed the government to continue to claim that the affected communities have already agreed with the SDA's resettlement and compensation plans.

From riverbank to desert

Thousands of affected people have already been displaced to desert locations chosen by the SDA. However, the soil in those new locations is so poor that even with irrigation, the farmers cannot sell their produce on the markets. Instead, they have to pay for fertilizer and electricity to power irrigation pumps- services that the annual floods of the Nile provided for free at their previous homes. In a short time, the poverty rate in the resettlement area has increased dramatically.

Negotiation efforts rebuffed

The Manasir Council represents the majority of the dam- affected people. The demands of the affected communities and their Council are modest. They focus not on halting Merowe, but on improving the terms of resettlement and the compensation for their lands.

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Our own government is treating us like adversaries.

- Sudanese farmer displaced by the Merowe dam.