A Journey to the Red Sea (March, 1988)

-1-

Locations and alternatives

The Red Sea stretches from the port of Suez in Egypt, down through the Gulf of Aden to the Indian Ocean. To its east lies Saudi Arabia and Yemen, to its west its coastline is claimed by Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Tigray and Somalia before it emerges into the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

The portion claimed by Sudan is that country’s only outlet by sea to the outside world, to foreign markets for its cotton which flourishes in its irrigated lands between the Blue and White Niles, the area known as Gezira, literally ‘island’.

Between Gezira and the Red Sea lies some five hundred miles of metalled road; a road that links the capital, Khartoum, with the important towns of wad Medani, the major town in Gezira; Gedaref, near to the border with Ethiopia and itself a major centre of trade for the Easter region; Kassala, with its population from Yemen – the Rashaida, from Eritrea and from Tigray, refugees from the famine and wars in those disputed lands now under Ethiopian rule, to Port Sudan on the Red Sea and built by the British.

Tarmac roads are more or less non existent in the rest of the Sudan, and traveling from Khartoum or Wad Medani to Port Sudan is considered an easy journey in comparison to treks to the west, to El Obaid and Nyala. The only alternative to traveling by those rough tracks and graded roads, that are impassable in the rainy season, is the train which only runs once a week and can take weeks rather than days to reach its furthest destinations. The road to Port Sudan is a long one but the buses and lorries travel relatively quickly and rain never hinders progress.

The two weeks between the end of 2nd Year Examinations and the ‘Shihada’ – the important 3rd and Final Year Examination for Higher Secondary School students, would, we thought, be more than sufficient time to reach the red Sea and look round Port Sudan and its redundant neighbour, Suakin, the port that served Sudan prior to the building of Port Sudan before the 1st World War.