ISS025-E-6160 Click the photo number to access all resolutions available and the database record.
Following Sudan’s independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom in 1956, allocation and control of Nile River water was divided between Egypt and Sudan by the Nile Waters Treaty signed in 1959. Today, other countries within the Nile basin—including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda—are seeking more equitable allocation and utilization of the water and recently (2010) signed a new water use pact challenging the 1959 treaty.
Beyond the issues of water rights, several local tribes will be displaced by the planned 170 kilometer (105 mile) reservoir, and the flooded region contains significant but little-studied archeological sites. The Sudanese government has a resettlement program in place for the tribes, and a variety of international institutions have been conducting “salvage ” or “rescue” archeological surveys since 1999. Such rescue surveys seek to preserve as much information as possible from sites that will be destroyed or otherwise made inaccessible (in this case by flooding).
