Halaib Triangle

Hala'ib Triangle مثلث حلائب
Disputed territory
Country	Administered by Egypt, claimed by Sudan.
Area
• Total	20,580 km2 (7,950 sq mi)
• Disputed area	20,580 km2 (7,950 sq mi)
Lowest elevation	0 m (0 ft)

The Hala'ib Triangle (مثلث حلائب in Arabic, transliterated Muthāllath Ḥalāʾib) is an area of land measuring 20,580 square kilometres (7,950 sq mi) located on the Red Sea's African coast. The area, which takes its name from the town of Hala'ib, is created by the difference in the Egypt–Sudan border between the "political boundary" set in 1899 by the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, which runs along the 22nd parallel north, and the "administrative boundary" set by the British in 1902, which assigned administration of the area to Sudan. Both Egypt and Sudan claim the resulting territory. Following Sudanese independence from Egypt, and the United Kingdom in 1956, Sudan administered the area and its citizens voted in all of Sudan's elections. However, since the mid-1990s, Egypt has exercised sole administration of the area as part of the Red Sea Governorate, following the deployment of Egyptian military units there in the 1990s, and has been actively investing in it.

The description of the area as a "triangle" is a rough generalization. Only the southern 290 kilometres (180 mi) demarcation, which follows latitude 22, is a straight line. While the whole area is north of the 22 degree line, a smaller area south of latitude 22, referred to as Bir Tawil, joins the Hala'ib Triangle at its westernmost point along the latitude line – neither Sudan nor Egypt claim Bir Tawil.

The area is sometimes referred to in Egypt as the "Sudan Government Administration Area" or SGAA.

Settlements

The major town in the area is Abu Ramad which lies 30 kilometres (19 mi) north west of Hala'ib on the Red Sea coast. Abu Ramad is the last destination of the buses that connect the area to Cairo and the other cities of Egypt such as Aswan, Marsa Alam and Qena. The only other populated place is the small village of Hadarba, south east of Hala'ib town on the coast. Alshalateen is an Egyptian town just on the northern administrative boundary. The closest Sudanese town south of the disputed area is Osief (Marsa Osief), located 26 kilometres (16 mi) south of latitude 22, the political border line claimed by Egypt based on the 1899 agreement.

History

The Hala'ib Triangle has been under Egyptian administration since mid-1990.

File:Map of Sudan, Hala'ib Triangle.gif

Although this map of Sudan (prior to the secession of South Sudan in 2011) depicts the Hala'ib Triangle as part of the country, Sudan does not exercise its jurisdiction over the area.

Sovereignty over the area has never been satisfactorily determined. Both Egypt and Sudan claim ownership over the land.

In 1899, when the United Kingdom held hegemony in the area, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement for Sudan set the political boundary between the territories at the 22nd parallel. However, in 1902 the British drew a separate "administrative boundary," under which a triangle of land north of the parallel was placed under Sudanese administration, because its inhabitants were closer to Khartoum than Cairo, both geographically and culturally. The area thus became the responsibility of the British Governor in Khartoum. This created two boundaries: one political, and one administrative.

In February 1958, two years after Sudanese independence, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt sent troops into the disputed region for the referendum of the proposed unification between Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic. but withdrew them the same month.

Although both countries laid claim to the land, the area remained under Egyptian-Sudanese joint control until the dispute resurfaced in 1992, when Egypt objected to Sudan’s granting of exploration rights for the waters off the Triangle to a Canadian oil company. Negotiations began, but the company pulled out of the deal until sovereignty was settled. In January 2000, Sudan withdrew its own forces from the area, effectively ceding control of the border zone to Egypt, whose forces have occupied and administered the area ever since.

Recent events

• In 2004 Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir claimed that despite his nation's withdrawal in 2000, and Egypt's de facto control of the Triangle, the area still rightfully belonged to Sudan which had "never relinquished" it. "We did not make any concessions... The proof is that we have recently renewed the complaint to the Security Council," he said, according to the Associated Press. Newly discovered oil reserves in the territory may have prompted Al-Bashir's decision to resurrect Sudan’s claim, and this has only increased the desire of both states to claim the area. Al-Bashir reiterated the Sudanese claim of sovereignty over Hala'ib in a 2010 speech in Port Sudan, saying "Hala'ib is Sudanese and will always be Sudanese."

• The Eastern Front, a Sudanese politico-military coalition comprising the Beja Congress and Free Lions that recently signed a peace agreement with Khartoum, has stated that it considers Hala'ib to be part of Sudan due its population being ethnically, linguistically and tribally connected to that country. The head of the Eastern Front and Beja Congress, Musa Muhammad Ahmad, has declared that the issue of Hala'ib's sovereignty should be decided by international arbitration in a similar manner to the issue of sovereignty over Abyei between Northern and Southern Sudan.

• In October 2009 the Electoral Commission that prepared a comprehensive plan for Sudan's general elections in April 2010 declared that Hala'ib was one of the Red Sea State electoral districts and that its people should exercise their constitutional rights and register in order to participate in the general elections. Voter registration did not take place in the Hala'ib Triangle area because the team from the Sudanese election commission was refused entry by Egyptian authorities. In December 2009, the Sudanese presidential assistant Musa Mohamed Ahmed was barred from entering the border area. Ahmed's visit was intended to "assert [Sudanese] sovereignty over the [Hala'ib] triangle and inspect the situation of the people and provide moral and financial support to the members of the Sudanese army unit trapped inside since the [Egyptian] occupation began." His remarks were the first official recognition that Sudanese Army personnel remained inside the area of de facto Egyptian control. Ahmed also asserted that the Hal'ib Triangle is Sudanese and would not be forsaken "under any circumstances."

• The government of Egypt is taking steps to close the Egyptian-Sudanese trade center of Alshalateen and move it to the border control pass point on the 22nd parallel, which has had its facilities enlarged and its administrative manpower increased to handle the Egyptian-Sudanese land trade. By doing this, trucks bringing goods to Egypt from Sudan will not be allowed to unload their goods in Alshalateen, as in the past, but instead at the Hadarba border pass point. Wadi Halfa is another border pass point west of the Nile River at 22 degrees north.

• As of 2009 the Egyptian electricity authority is building a line to supply the city of Alshalateen with electric power from the main Egyptian grid to replace the generators presently in use there. This line will extend in the future to Abu Ramad and Hala'ib. Since May 2010 a new paved road connects the triangle to Port Sudan.

• It was reported in the Sudanese daily Al-Ahram Today on 22 April 2010 that Al-Taher Muhammad Hasaay, the former head of the Hala'ib Council and a member of the Bisharin tribe who was campaigning against the Egyptian military presence in the Hala'ib triangle, died in a hospital in Cairo after having been detained by Egyptian security forces without trial for two years. A delegation of the Bisharin tribe stated to the Sudan Media Centre that seven of their members were also in detention: Muhammad Eissa Saeed, who has been in custody for 6 years, Ali Eissa Abu Eissa and Muhammad Saleem, detained for 5 years, and Hashim Othman, Muhammad Hussein AbdalHakam, Karrar Muhammad Tahir and Muhammad Tahir Muhammad Saleh each in holding for 2 years.

• In July 2010, it was reported in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that the chiefs of three tribes in the Hala'ib triangle – el-Ababda, el-Basharya and el-Beja – supported the Egyptian claims for the area, stating that they are Egyptian and not Sudanese citizens, and that they have all the rights of Egyptian citizens, including national identity cards, the right to vote in elections and to serve in the Egyptian military.

• On November 29, 2010, an open letter was sent to the President of Sudan by Muhammad Al-Hassan Okair (Toyota) who had been the parliamentary member of Hala'ib in 1995, from Hala'ib itself. The letter was written on behalf of the Bisharin, Hamad-Orab and Aliyaab tribes and complained of the forced inclusion of 20 villages that had been administered under indigenous civil society structures into 2 Egyptian electoral districts. The letter further complained of the siege of Hala'ib, the fact that its inhabitants live within barbed wire and that anything from Sudan is refused entry on the premise that Hala'ib is Egyptian and that the tribes' camels are not allowed to travel and graze for pasture in the ancestral lands of the Bisharin from Hala'ib to the neighbouring River Nile (state) in Sudan.

Ecology and geography

In the Hala'ib region, Afrotropical elements have their northern limits at Gebel Elba, making it a unique region among Egypt's dominating Mediterranean and North African ecosystems. There is also dense cover of acacias, mangroves and other shrubs, in addition to endemic species of plants such as Biscutella elbensis.

The highest peaks in the area are Mount Elba (1,435 m or 4,708 ft), Mount Shellal (1,409 m or 4,623 ft), Mount Shendib (1,911 m or 6,270 ft) and Mount Shendodai (1,526 m or 5,007 ft). The Gebel Elba mountain area is a nature reserve declared by Egypt in a decree signed by the former prime minister Ahmed Nazif.

Map

Area map pasted from four individual sheets

See also

• Annexation
• Bir Tawil, a terra nullius occurring in an adjoining area, claimed by neither Egypt nor Sudan
• Wadi Halfa Salient
• Egypt-Sudan relations
• Foreign Relations of Egypt
• Foreign Relations of Sudan
• Territorial Disputes

References

Notes

External links

• 1808 Map of Africa
• 1892 Map of Egypt
• 1912 Map of Egypt under the British