Twenty-three years on, the struggle of the Manasir tribe remains unresolved. Seventeen years have passed since residents of the region sacrificed their villages and fertile farmland to make way for the Merowe Dam and its reservoir, which began filling in 2008.
At the time, the project was promoted as a national undertaking designed to generate electricity and revitalize Sudan’s economy through expanded energy production.
Yet the bitter irony repeated today by residents of Al-Buhaira locality in Nile River State is that the very region whose lands were submerged to power the nation still lives in darkness.
The land whose people refused to reave
For people, the issue was never merely a move from one place to another. It was a matter of identity, heritage and a homeland inhabited by generations of their ancestors.
When agreements were signed in 2002 and 2003 and construction of the dam began in 2004, the National Congress Party Government presented a single option to the 78,000 people affected by the project: residents of Hamadab, Amri, the Manasir homeland and parts of the Rabatab region.
For the Manasir, who constituted the majority of those impacted by the dam, the government decided to resettle them far from their ancestral lands, specifically in Al-Makabrab (New Manasir) in Ad-Damar locality, south of Nile River State, and in Al-Fidaa in Abu Hamad.
Residents resisted the relocation plan even before construction commenced in 2003.
Their opposition continued after the reservoir began filling and their villages were submerged in 2008.
By 2009, one year after the flooding of the Manasir homeland, roughly 68 per cent had rejected relocation altogether, choosing instead to remain along the reservoir’s shores, without basic services but on their own land.
For them, the issue was never merely a move from one place to another. It was a matter of identity, heritage and a homeland inhabited by generations of their ancestors.
Following the dam’s completion, protests intensified and continued for years after its inauguration, as residents demanded recognition of what became known as the Local Option, the right to remain within their original homeland and be resettled there rather than displaced to distant locations.
In 2012, the Manasir staged a sit-in outside the Nile River State government secretariat in Ad-Damar that lasted four full months.
The protest ended with the official recognition of the Local Option, but despite that acknowledgement, implementation remains stalled to this day.
An incomplete resettlement
According to Hegazi Abdullah Hegazi, a community activist from the area who has worked extensively to document the case, the resettlement programme was supposed to include the construction of new housing and the allocation of replacement farmland for local residents, whose livelihoods depended on agriculture and who lost their land when it was submerged by the dam reservoir.
Yet after all these years, the housing projects remain unfinished. There are 500 houses in Abu Haraz and another 500 in Abu Sarah, occupied only by teachers, along with 250 homes in Umm Suhail and a similar number in Al Tuwayna.
None of these developments has been fully completed, and all lack basic services. As a result, residents of Al-Buhaira have declined to move there, arguing that the housing stock is insufficient to accommodate a population spread across dozens of villages and community councils.
Al-Buhaira locality is divided into several traditional administrative councils. Some encompass five villages, while others include more than 25, reflecting both the vast geographic expanse of the region and the density of its local communities.
Residents say the issue was never simply about building houses. Rather, it was supposed to provide fair compensation for an entire way of life that was lost, including agricultural lands for which the state is yet to offer compensation.
Scorpions emerging from the water
Our dam grinds grain for others and leaves us only scraps.
Poet Mohammed Al-Burai
The consequences of the dam did not end with displacement and the failure of resettlement efforts.
In the years following its construction, new crises began to surface, most notably the widespread proliferation of scorpions and other venomous insects across the region.
According to accounts from physicians and local residents, more than 300 children have died from scorpion stings since the dam was built.
Hegazi says he personally documented the deaths of 168 children in several villages as a result of venomous insect bites. He recounts the story of the reservoir like an open wound, arguing that the true disaster lies not only in the presence of scorpions but also in the absence of any meaningful health response capable of saving children’s lives.
Although Al-Buhaira has more than 20 health centres, most are inadequately equipped and lack electricity. The irony that weighs heavily on residents is that the root cause of this hardship is the very project built to generate power.
Hegazi notes that the only health facilities with reliable electricity are located in Umm Sarah and Al-Tuwayna, the administrative centres where the local government is based.
Residents often invoke the words of poet Mohammed Al-Burai, who lamented a dam that illuminated all of Sudan while leaving the people of the land in darkness:
“Our dam grinds grain for others and leaves us only scraps. It feeds the people of the land, while our own homeland is swept aside by misery.”
Antivenom that cannot save children
Residents of Al-Buhaira say the lack of electricity has had a direct impact on the storage of the antivenom used to treat scorpion stings. In many cases, doses get spoilt because of poor storage conditions and the absence of suitable refrigeration.
Even when the antivenom is available, reaching treatment before it is too late often proves impossible.
Among the stories that remain etched in the community’s memory is that of Hussein Ali Hamza, who died in 2015 after being stung by a scorpion in Al-Jabia village on Boni Island. He was only nine years old.
His brother, Mohammed Hussein Ali Hamza, recalls the circumstances of his death, explaining that the nearest health centre is a full two-hour journey from the four villages that make up Boni Island.
Surrounded by the Nile on all sides, the island has no health facility of its own.
Mohammed says residents frequently resort to traditional remedies using onions, ginger, lemon and local herbs because attempting to transport a child to a health centre often means death will come before they get the antivenom.
“With the distance involved, a child can die before we get to the clinic,” he says. “And even if we make it there, the antivenom is often expired.”
The absence of health facilities on Boni Island becomes an even greater burden during the rainy season.
Leaving the island grows increasingly difficult, sometimes nearly impossible, because of storms and flooding.
Residents rely on ferries and small boats to reach Merowe for medical care, a journey that can take four or five hours, or even longer during the rains. At times, entire villages are cut off completely from the outside world.
The absence of health facilities on Boni Island becomes an even greater hardship during the rainy season.
Leaving the island grows increasingly difficult, and at times nearly impossible, because of storms and flooding.
Residents rely on ferries and small boats to reach Merowe for medical care, a journey that can take four to five hours, and often longer during the rains.
In many cases, entire villages are completely cut off from the outside world.
Schools crumbling, students drawn into mining
The state of education in Al-Buhaira differs little from that of other public services. On August 15, 2018, the locality witnessed a tragedy that shook Sudan and drew international attention when 24 schoolchildren drowned while crossing the Nile on their way to school.
Even today, many pupils have no alternative but to travel by boat to attend classes.
According to Ahmed Mohammed Ali, the director of education in Al-Buhaira locality, the area has nearly 50 primary schools and only five secondary schools. Most, however, suffer from severe deterioration.
I don’t know how we are going to fill this shortage.
Ahmed Mohammed Ali, director of education in Al-Buhaira locality
Classrooms have collapsed, buildings remain unfinished, and the overall learning environment is, in his words, unfit for education.
Ahmed says some schools lack enough completed classrooms to accommodate students, forcing administrators to adopt an alternating enrollment system. First, third and fifth grade students may attend one year, while second, fourth and sixth grade students attend the next.
Ahmed notes that there are signs of modest improvement.
The Nile River State Localities Development Fund has constructed four units, consisting of two classrooms and two offices, at several schools across the locality.
Ahmed says the education sector is also grappling with a severe teacher shortage.
Since the outbreak of the April war, 51 teachers have retired while only 17 new teachers have been appointed, far too few to cover the existing gap. The challenge is expected to deepen, with another 23 teachers scheduled to retire next year.
“I don’t know how we are going to fill this shortage,” he says.
The crisis extends beyond staffing. Both primary and secondary schools suffer from an acute lack of textbooks to the point where an entire classroom may have only one or two copies, particularly in sixth grade. He, however, notes that intermediate schools do not face the same problem as their textbook supply is complete.
Yet the most serious threat to education in Al-Buhaira, according to the education director, is school dropout linked to artisanal gold mining.
Large numbers of male students gradually abandon their studies to work in mining sites.
Ahmed explains that a third-year secondary class may begin the academic year with 70 students. If 40 are boys and 30 are girls at the start, the number of male students steadily declines over the course of the year, falling to around 25. By the time students sit for the national secondary school examinations, only about 10 boys remain.
He believes that deteriorating school conditions, poverty and the lure of mining are all driving students away from the classroom and undermining the future of education in the locality.
Two decades of waiting
Today, 23 years after the dam’s construction began, residents of Al-Buhaira say their case remains without a solution.
Locals believe the answer to all of their hardships, including the deadly scorpion stings, lies in completing resettlement and extending electricity to the area.
Hegazi says successive governors have come and gone in Nile River State, yet Al-Buhaira’s grievances remain unresolved and, in many ways, have only deepened over time.
He adds that fears among residents resurfaced in May 2026 after new plans emerged to expand artisanal mining activities inside the locality. The proposal was met with outright rejection from local communities, who say they are still living with the consequences of the dam and refuse to endure another disaster layered onto old ones.
For them, their homeland is not simply a place swallowed by water. It is the story of an entire community that continues to struggle for its right to remain, to endure and to live.
