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The gift of the Nile

The world’s longest river is a source of sustenance – and tension.

struggle over the nile - picture gallery
"The Nile, forever new and old, Among the living and the dead, Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus - The Golden Legend [EPA]
Published On 7 Jun 2011
struggle over the nile
Egypt is "the gift of the Nile". Herodotus [GALLO/GETTY]
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struggle over the nile - picture gallery
"The major cities along the Nile are only there because of the Nile. If the Nile was not there, it would just be another part of the Sahara Desert. It would just be dust and sand. You could not live there without the Nile, it is the life blood." Everton Fox, meteorologist [GALLO/GETTY]
struggle over the nile - picture gallery
"Mysterious flood, that through the silent sands, Hast wandered, century on century, Watering the length of great Egyptian lands, which were not, but for thee." Bayard Taylor, To the Nile [EPA]
struggle over the nile - picture gallery
"The source of the Nile was legendary for any number of people over the course of time because it was enormously important to them, it fed their civilisations, made life possible and at the same time, no one knew where it originally originated." Dane Kennedy, British historian [EPA/NASA]
struggle over the nile - picture gallery
"For the Romans, for the Greeks, for the Egyptians themselves, [the source of the Nile] was a question that generated a great deal of curiosity. [It] also generated legends, speculations." Dane Kennedy, British historian [GALLO/GETTY]
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"You have Herodotus suggesting the Nile originates in the Atlas Mountains, that it crosses the Sahara Desert .... You have Tula May speculating that what he calls Mountains of the Moon sort of provide the snow melt that originates as the source of the Nile." Dane Kennedy, British historian [EPA]
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struggle over the nile
"For Europeans, the exploration of the Nile [was] probably the biggest goal, in abstract terms, that drives their enterprise in the 19th century because it is seen as the largest and most important river and also because there is this long heritage, or history, associated with it." Dane Kennedy, British historian [GALLO/GETTY]
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"There is no single owner who can lay claim over the Nile water ... that is God given resources, we thank God for it, having passed through our countries." Beatrice Atim, shadow water minister, Uganda [EPA]
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"The most beautiful thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the world is the Nile. There is no other river like it. It is a great river - heavenly - and the life around it is unique." Hamdi, a Sudanese farmer [GALLO/GETTY]
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"No-one living beside the Nile can ever stray far from it. If he does, he will feel lost." Hamdi, a Sudanese farmer [EPA]
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"When the Jonglei canal was being opened I was still a young man and we saw stock and stock of cattle coming from the east going to the Nile to drink water and they just went in and they perished because of those big banks that were opened up because of those machines." Loro George Leju Lugor, deputy minister of agriculture, southern Sudan [GALLO/GETTY]
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"[Nile countries] are dependent on each other. They have to cooperate. Water was there when the states were not there, so water will continue forever .... So the only thing is to think seriously and to think emphatically, cooperatively, and to consult [each other over] how to utilise the water resources [so that it] best benefits ... the nations in the basin." Yacob Arsana, political scientist, Ethiopia [EPA]