Halfa – A submersed Town Back on Surface
06 December, 2011
Khartoum (sudanow.info.sd)- Home-love is faith, as the saying goes. This may be what has kept the flame of the desire of the Halfaween (original inhabitants of Halfa) to go back home still glowing for about a century.
After decades of displacement to a remote area from the river Nile around which their whole heritage and culture is woven, they have now started returning in flocks to the ancient valley of Halfa reshaping features of a new town that is growing and expending every day.
The last trickle of ancient Halfa inhabitants left the town in June 1964 as their town sank into oblivion, a rare sacrifice offered by the Sudanese government for the Egyptian government to build the High Dam, south of Egypt, that inundated by its lake huge lands and whole pre-historic civilization and monuments in northern Sudan, uprooting hundreds of Halfawaeen from their home area. Most of the town’s Nubian inhabitants, to avert drowning, were relocated to a place in the Butanah, East Sudan, rechristened New Halfa, after the old one. The indigenous inhabitants have now begun to return in tens through its Nubian-style gate, according to Halfa Commissioner Abu-Bakr Mohamed Osman.
Observers note that five years ago, the few inhabitants used to offer the newcomers deserted houses on high place to choose for living in. Now, due to the growing population, the houses rentals have soared to reach 750 pounds for a small house.
The Commissioner says until 1983 the population of both the Wadi (valley) numbered only 135, leading severe and harsh conditions, but now the number of the population of Halfa town alone reached 5,000 people, residing as house proprietors or tenants.
“We will restore it to its old shape,” is the slogan raised by the returnees to Halfa town and the surrounding villages who, according increase consecutively.
Osman said the Ministry of Urban and Housing Planning of the Northern State and Locality Authorities, in consultation with the inhabitants have finalized preparation of the residential plots and public facilities of the town and its villages and pledged to observe the motto “Halfa will return with its old names” which coined and agreed upon by all.
In order to facilitate the return of the willing people to Halfa and get their lands, the Locality does not literally apply the terms and rules of the government departments, as put by the Commissioner. He added that some of the returnees are more serious about returning and settling down for good in the region and those are given lands before the others. About 414 out of 1450 planned plots have been distributed, the Commissioner said.
He added that in many cases the Locality permits some of the demographic group to make some touches or development additions to the plans in response to their desire for securing benefits and adding the specialty the old villages used to have and, for this reason, the internal distribution is made in coordination with civil society organizations such as Ashkeet organization.
Halfa is now open to every Halfawi or every Sudanese, according to the Commissioner, adding that, after its rehabilitation many people of no previous relationship with the town have begun to arrive and all of them are contributing to endowing new features to WadiHalfa.
The previous suffering of the people which may be as long as the age of the oldest surviving person who opted to stay behind living on the high lands after the town disappeared under the Nuba Lake without having any services, has now come to an end.
The town and the new inhabitants now enjoy all basic services usually available in the towns, including a specialized hospital, medical, preventative and environmental health services, several primary schools fully furnished with a healthy environment. There are also four secondary schools, a university college, an internal 27-km network of asphalted roads and other national roads that link the town with all towns of the Sudan.
But the tragedy of the water that submersed the Wadi and displaced its inhabitants has now, after about five decades, given them some consolation making them more adherent to the land than before.
After their relocation in 1964 and the inundation of nearly the entire Wadi, there was no room for farming and the remaining people earned their living from trade but now, according to Osman, the returning people engaged in the farming business on the inundation lands they owned once again after 50 years.
According to Yunis Mohamed Abdul Majed, the head of the Union of the Lake Nuba Agricultural Cooperatives, the agricultural inundation lands are the area lying between contours 182-147 submersed by the High Dam. They are 630,000 feddans in area stretching from Sahaba to DAL area in old Halfa. The water subsided from those lands, leaving tons of silt behind, rich arable land, few hundred meters from scorching desert. Halfa Commissioner says those lands are highly fertile as quantities of silt, estimated to be more than a million tons, have recently been uncovered.
“Those lands will play a great role in the Sudan’s agricultural future due to their high fertility which yielded a potato weighing a kilogram,” the Commissioner said.
The lands have not until now been exploited commercially but now there are plans for exploitation by investors for growing all sorts of crops on vast projects, Osman said. The head of Lake Nuba Agricultural Cooperatives Union, however, says the acreage of the cultivable lands is not stable, depending on the level of the water behind the Dam. Supporting his argument, Abdul Majed cited the 1984 drought and the 1992 high flood, making the Union adopt a flexible policy in distributing the land plots.
Nevertheless, he agreed that those lands are so fertile that a feddans (acre), even using the conventional methods of cultivation, produces up to 30 bags (100 kg each) of wheat and yields large quantities of quality vegetables.
End
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