32 Giddafi takes Khartoum
Kaddafi takes Khartoum
It was the 4th of July 1976 nearing the end of my second year on the Geography Faculty at the University of Khartoum. I was part of a group of 60 faculty and students returning from the Sixth Cataract (water fall) on the Nile after studying a variety of environmental conditions that included the physical geography of desert land-forms, plants and animals. Irrigation agriculture along the banks of Nile and rain fed agriculture in the semi-arid lands.
We were heading south to the University of Khartoum back from the annual field course exercises in the desert. It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The road followed the eastern bank of the Nile and the Eastern Sahara was on our left. As the buses bounced along the aging tarmac road the students were singing traditional songs in Arabic. I began to notice that most of the traffic was moving north, away from Khartoum. Our progress was unimpeded as there were few vehicles competing for our southbound lane.
At one point we stopped to drop off a few students at their homes along the way. Some of the villagers mentioned that there was no radio communication from Khartoum.
Lower Nile, April 17, 2005. Photo by Mark Dingemanse. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nubia_today.png
“The radio is dead” exclaimed one person as the bus stopped. “There is trouble in Khartoum!”
Wanting to know what was happening we checked our radio in the bus. All stations were off the air which was an ominous sign. Usually this is the first thing that happens when there is a coup d’état as the insurgents immediately close off communications to keep any resistance from organizing again them.
Location map Sudan Khartoum.png by Maps for free, adapted by Dr. Blofeld is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, 2020. .
We became concerned as we approached Khartoum and stopped frequently to ask questions from the locals. A driver coming from Khartoum stopped his pickup truck and told us there was a strange military group of foreigners that had suddenly taken over the city.
I had experienced two other coup attempts in 1974 and in 1975. Similar communication black outs had occurred then. Both of these attempts failed and Jaffar Numeri continued reigning as president.
We felt some uncertainty about continuing on to the University. Our bus driver began waving down on- coming vehicles to ask what they knew about this new development. One driver informed us. “The insurgents had only taken Khartoum and had not crossed theNiles.”
I could relax somewhat, since my home was across the Blue Nile from Khartoum. Khartoum is located where the White and Blue Niles meet. In fact the name Khartoum in a local tribal language means “elephant’s trunk” and, indeed, on the map I could see the slight resemblance to a long trunk reaching between where the rivers meet. When the English came they constructed Khartoum, between the two Niles.
President Nimeiri. Photo b