The racism that Nubians in Egypt sometimes experience from the Arab majority in their country was dramatized last week in a widely publicized incident involving a popular soccer (football) star. The incident exemplifies the bigotry that the Nubian writer Idris Ali wrote about in a major novel, which was the… Continue reading…
The Nubians of Egypt continue to press for a return to their ancient homeland along the Nile as a solution to their yearnings for stability, prosperity, and peaceful village relations. Most of them were forced to leave their communities in southern Egypt and northern Sudan in 1964 when the Aswan… Continue reading…
The Egyptian Ministry of Housing is building a resettlement community near the city of Aswan for the Nubian people but it is having a hard time attracting settlers. According to a news report published last week in the Daily News Egypt, the project to build housing in the Wadi Qurqur,… Continue reading…
An article published last week argues that the wedding customs of the Nubians living in New Halfa, a resettlement community in Eastern Sudan, are unchanging. The author, Abdalla Hassan Al-Haj, writing an essay for the magazine SudaNow published in Khartoum, which was reprinted in AllAfrica.com, asserts that the Sudanese Nubians… Continue reading…
A major demand by Egypt’s Nubian community—to have the option of resettling into their historic homelands along the Nile—moved a step closer to reality last week. The government announced on Wednesday the beginning of a project to form new communities for Nubians around Lake Nasser, the vast impoundment formed in… Continue reading…
Last month, the Nubian people were not discussed during the celebrations in Egypt marking the 50th anniversary of the construction of the High Dam at Aswan, even though the reservoir destroyed much of Old Nubia. Haggag Oddoul, a prominent Egyptian Nubian writer who lives in Alexandria, told a reporter from… Continue reading…
Over a week ago, conflicts between rival Arab and Nubian clans in Aswan, in southern Egypt, escalated into street violence that claimed 26 dead and over 50 injured. Accounts in the Egyptian and international media differ as to who or what caused the violence. The story, as told by the… Continue reading…
National Geographic covered a lot of familiar ground in its recent news report on the Nubians of Egypt, but it also included some interesting information about Nubian culture and current affairs. The journalist writing for the Geographic, Peter Schwartzstein, begins his story by recounting his meeting with Fatma Emam Sakory…. Continue reading…
The new Egyptian constitution, completed at the beginning of December, included a few political gains for the Nubians, but at least one young intellectual activist is not entirely satisfied. Fatma Emam Sakory, a freelance researcher and translator, was a member of the consultative office of Haggag Oddoul, the senior Nubian… Continue reading…
A committee writing a new constitution for Egypt has banned forced evacuations, like the one 50 years ago that destroyed most of Old Nubia. According to a news report last week, Hoda Al-Sadda, chair of the Rights and Liberties Subcommittee, indicated that the measure is aimed at protecting minority groups—not… Continue reading…
