Khartoum security between development and development planning – the face of truth – ✍️ Ibrahim Shaqlawi
The war of April 15, 2023 and the collapse of the security widespread in the state of Khartoum revealed a clear structural fragility in geography, town planning and the political system, which allowed the rapid support militia to control large areas despite the presence of the army and other security services within IT, which calls for an examination of the concept of security and its mechanisms.
This sad reality underlined the absence of the strategic vision of global security, which is supposed to link geography, town planning and development policies within the framework of an integrated approach to national security.
The private life of the state of Khartoum, which includes the political and administrative capital of the country, makes its security a question that goes beyond the function of the police or direct security measures. It is the center of the sovereign decision, the site of the meeting between the two niles, and a point of demographic concentration, as well as an open and open city open from the south and the west, and geographically divided into three urban areas separated by navigable channels which do not represent a real military obstacle.
This topographic and structural nature, as well as most vital institutions focusing in a narrow range, makes Khartoum, according to military experts, is vulnerable to the exposure in the field in the absence of long -term structural defenses.
International experiences offer important models to rethink the security of capitals. In Algeria, according to a security expert during the “black decree” in 1992, the authorities adopted a double strategy: security and development, by integrating the campaign surrounding the capital in a productive and security belt. This was done thanks to a distribution of intelligent population, agricultural infrastructure and gentle surveillance facilities in the rural field, which limited the capacity of armed groups to infiltrate, concentrate or constitute a threat.
In Egypt, the response came by expanding the vital field of the capital with major projects such as Al -Salam and Toshki Channel, which were not only irrigation projects, but geopolitical tools which redistributed the population and created a safe and stable urban depth around Cairo.
In light of this, the proposed project of the Sudanese engineer Othman Haider Abdul Hadi, who has prepared a complete study of our place, is acquired as strategic importance, because it exceeds the engineering side towards an integrated geopolitical perception.
The project is based on the idea of converting the course of the white Nile from the south of Khartoum to its north through a channel of approximately 470 km, instead of the current track extending over around 1,700 km.
This modification will create a new agricultural belt estimated at two million acres, which is a depth of production and security around the capital. The canal alongside the agricultural and economic depth it provides, establishes a line of natural defense against any land threat from the south or western, with the possibility of linking it to intelligent surveillance centers and advanced control points, without excessive militarization of the civil domain.
In addition, the project contributes to the exploitation of huge amounts of torrential torrents each year in the state of Khartoum, which reaches approximately 4 million cubic meters. If the canal is designed according to the natural decline in the region, it provides a sustainable water protection system, which improves safety and serves development.
The idea is not isolated from reality, because certain historical and geological sources indicate that the proposed path can be part of an old flow through Wadi al -Muqaddah, which improves the feasibility of the project with the environment and historically. The impact of Sudan of Nile Water will be limited, because it does not consume additional water, but rather redirects the current resources and the advantages of rainwater and torrents.
Khartoum’s safety should not be reduced to the compensation for forces or to the intensification of police measures, but rather to redefine the function of geography in a complete approach. By converting water into a natural trench, cultivating a sustainable barrier, and in the protection partner campaign, a safety system for development can be formulated which makes capital more solid and stable.
The proposed vision is the position of the state of Khartoum in a national project which balances the center and the margin, and redistributes the population and the productive weight, and gives the capital a greater capacity to absorb shocks, whether military, climatic or demographic.
According to the face of the truth, Khartoum’s security is a political problem with distinction, which is linked to the extent of the seriousness of the State in the adoption of long -term strategic planning. The proposed project represents a historic opportunity to redefine the security of the Sudanese capital according to an integrated vision, a mating between politics and development, and makes Khartoum the capital of security and stability, not an open square for conflict. The proposed project, if it has received serious official attention, represents a historic opportunity to redefine the security of the Sudanese capital according to the integrated vision of the new capital.
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