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Egypt’s Nubians get second chance at requesting compensation

On the occasion of the anniversary of laying the foundation stone of the Aswan dam, the Egyptian state opened the door to the second phase of the compensation paid for the Nubians who were displaced from their lands.
Nubian girls play outside their home in the village of Abu Simbel in Egypt's far south, over 1100 kilometres south of the capital Cairo and near the border with Sudan, on February 4, 2020. - The Nubian language, according to locals, is unpractised by many in the generation born decades after their mass eviction from their ancestral lands to make way for the construction of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile in the 1960s. Built under Egypt's late president Gamal Abdel Nasser, the colossal project aimed to harnes

The people of Nubia in Egypt’s Aswan governorate have been awaiting the payment of compensation for the damage they suffered about a century ago from the inauguration of the Aswan Low Dam (the first Aswan dam) — currently known as the Aswan reservoir — in 1902 and later the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which was built between 1960 and mid-January 1971.

The Nubians were displaced from their villages, which stretch over 350 kilometers (217 miles) along the banks of the Nile River in southern Egypt, in 1902, when the Egyptian government began building the Aswan Low Dam to prevent flooding that led to the drowning and displacement of most of the Nubia residents.

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