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2010-07-01 Africa Horn

Sudan to close Libyan border over rebel threat

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Posted by Fred 2010-07-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Sudan

#1 I was just in this area last November.

I can assure you that there is a Libyan border presence( nice guys.), and there is even an Egyptian border presence(Nicer guys, our hosts for most of the trip), but despite my being well inside the Sudanese border for two weeks, there were no signs of any official Sudanese border guards or any other such things. There is essentially no official Sudanese governmental presence anywhere in that country beyond 20 miles from Khartoum. Trust me on this, if you want to go to this part of the world, you don't get there through official processes in Sudan. You come down from Egypt or Libya.

And Chad? Don't get me started. Chad makes the Sudan look like Disneyland on Grad night. The Chadian government having an opinion on who does and who does not cross into their country is beyond parody. Its not a country, its a combination mad max sequel and zombie movie, and its border areas with Libya are notoriously porous.

Let me try to describe the place this article is trying to talk about. This is the very deep part if the Sahara desert. If you are like me, you think "the desert" is the world you see out your window when you drive out to Las Vegas. Its not. The Sahara Desert is unlike anything you have seen in North America. The closest analog we have in the very deep part of the Sonora desert near the Gulf Of California, and even that is an order of magnitude more wet than this part of the world.

Compared to this part of the Sahara, death valley is a verdant garden. When you drive across any part of our western desert, it is dry, but things grow, there is water, it does rain, though sparsely, almost every year. There is Cactus throughout our deserts, there is none in the deep Sahara. This particular part of the Sahara is known by NASA as a perfect analog for Mars and was used as such when the Mars landers were being prepared. When NASA went there in the 90's to study it, they took soil samples and found that 80% of the samples were completely sterile. There is no plant life in this area, none, zip, nada. It rains, when it touches the ground only every decade or every other decade. When I was there, I described it best by saying that the largest spot of exposed water in the area was in our own eyeballs.

There are exactly three wells in the area, all at the base of one mountain. The Libyan border crossing is right on top of one. The other two are hard rock guelta wells. which means that they are catch basins at the bottom of ancient riverbeds. In other words, depending on the water received on the "once a decade" rains, they often go dry.

What this means is that if you are the Sudanese government and want to put a border station out there, you have to bring everything with you. All your water, food and supplies. Its a big logistics challenge and a big cost. Oh, you say your border is big and you need more than one? keep adding it up for each station.

If you are trying to get across this part of the world and you know there is a border station, you go around it. No one is going to come looking for you, so border stations are largely ineffective. Instead, you just camp on the water. Thats what the Libyans have done, as the Egyptians.

The only official military presence in the area is based around Jebel Uweniat. Thats because, thats where the water is - the only water for thousands of miles.

and that water can be measured in cups.

Posted by frank martin 2010-07-01 18:19|| www.varifrank.com 2010-07-01 18:19|| Front Page Top

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