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Sudan dam floods villages: farmers
Khartoum (AFP) July 29, 2008 Villagers complained Tuesday that a massive hydro-power, Chinese-engineered dam under construction in Sudan had deliberately flooded seven small villages and left 200 families homeless. Mohamed Said Ahmed, from an executive committee that represents 25 villages around the Merowe dam, 300 kilometres (188 miles) north of Khartoum, said homes had been under water for days and local residents faced food shortages. The dam shut its gates last Thursday, he told AFP, flooding seven villages. The Sudanese government and villagers are locked in talks to relocate local residents, with the dam scheduled for completion by the year-end. "There has been no agreement and now they closed the gates of the dam to pressure us to leave," Ahmed told AFP. "The water could cover all 25 villages, putting 1,000 families under water," he added. Villagers demand the government rebuild them new homes along the Nile. Dam officials were not available for comment on Tuesday. The 1.8-billion-dollar (1.4-billion-euro) Merowe dam looks to double Sudan's power production but is likely to displace tens of thousands of tribesmen. The largest such project on the Nile since the Aswan high dam was built in southern Egypt in the 1960s, it is being developed by China's CCMD consortium with the assistance of European companies including France's Alstom. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Final protest as village cleared for China's Three Gorges dam Beijing (AFP) July 24, 2008 Chinese authorities had to drag a woman from the water as she protested the evacuation of the last town to be submerged by China's Three Gorges Dam project, a local campaigner said Thursday. |
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