The Jonglei Canal project, considered
one of the most important integration projects between Egypt and Sudan, was
halted in 1983 as a result of the Sudanese civil war. The project, work on which
started in 1980, was a comprehensive engineering and environmental venture
designed to make full use of the River Nile, promote human and economic
development in semi-isolated regions and boost agricultural development in both
countries. Up till the project's termination, 260 kilometers out of the total
360 kilometers were completed. Reports indicated that a missile launched by an
unknown source destroyed the drill used for digging the canal.
The primary objective of the project was to ensure the flow of 4.7 billion
cubic meters of water annually, to be equally distributed between Egypt and
Sudan, and provide a model for similar water-conservation initiatives in other
areas, such as the Mashar swamps and the swamps of the Bahr al-Ghazal area. The
first stage of the project included the digging of a canal to provide
approximately 3.8 billion cubic meters of water annually. A second canal was to
double this amount, subject to agreement with the countries of the equatorial
lakes.
The termination of work came as a blow to the residents of the region, to Sudan
as a whole and to Egypt. According to the project's research team, the benefits
would have been felt over a wide area, from Bor in the south of Sudan to Kosti
in the north. The project was to have developed modern irrigation and drainage
facilities that would have put an end to agriculture being tied to the annual
patterns of flooding and drought. The termination of the project also led to a
considerable loss of livestock. According to the estimates of a national
conference on peace in 1989, nearly 6.6 million head of cattle perished.
The Jonglei Canal region is inhabited by around two million people; mainly the
peoples and tribes of the Dinka, Nower and Shalak. The local economy is very
much a seasonal one. In the rainy season, starting April or May and lasting
till December, rivers flood and people move to higher-lying regions where they
cultivate crops dependent on rain. In January, people move once more to the
plains, staying for the duration of the dry period. The yearly flooding exposes
livestock, as well as man, to disease and even death, as happened on a large
scale in the 1960s. One of the most significant benefits of the project was
that it would have curbed the annual flooding and changed the primary features
of the region's economy by introducing mechanical agriculture and other means
of modernization.
The project was to have diverted the course of 25 per cent of the water that
flows annually to the low plains from the River Zaraf and the al-Jabal Sea
estuary, via a canal to dams. A part of the land that has been under water for
more than 20 years would have been reclaimed, providing ideal ground for
breeding cattle, while the canal itself would have provided new opportunities
for fishing. The finance and technical know-how that was to have come to the
region would have benefited the south of Sudan as a whole, allowing the
government to realize its plans for social and economic development in an area
that is unable to fund such development by itself.
In return for providing technical and financial assistance to the region, both
Egypt and the centralized government of Sudan would have benefited from a share
of the water that was to have been stored in dams. The south needs this support
to speed up the flow of water from Malakal to Jouba and to provide social
services and drainage facilities in low-lying regions. The project would also
have helped with the establishment of an irrigation project to produce crops
over an area of 200,000 feddans -one feddan is approximately equal to one
acre-.
If peace is restored in the south of Sudan, a number of the obstacles that had
previously hindered the project would no longer exist. The energy problem has
been solved by the discovery of oil in the Bentiu region, which would allow for
the establishment of a refinery to meet the needs of the southern territory and
provide a cheap source of energy for drilling machines. Furthermore, with a
large number of the region's youth having gained experience in the construction
industry in the north - having fled to escape the war and find work - there
should be no shortage of suitable labor.