Atbarah
17.7133.98Koordinaten: 17 ° 43 'N, 33 ° 59 ' E
Atbara (Arabic عطبرة ʿ Atbara; alternative spelling Atbara ) is a town in the Sudanese state of Nahr an - Nil and located at the junction of the Atbara River in the Nile, 10 kilometers north of the provincial capital of ad - Damir in about 350 meters. The city is the administrative center and main service station of the Sudanese railway.
Population
For the Atbara area 139 768 inhabitants are given (calculated 2010).
Population development:
History
The urban development Atbaras began with the construction of the railway by troops of the Anglo -Egyptian Sudan. It was the preparation for the advance to Omdurman to put down the 1881 uprising began Mahdi. The first railway line was expanded mid-1890s along the Nile from Wadi Halfa to the south, with the construction of a second route through the desert was the beginning of January 1897 started in Wadi Halfa. The latter was completed in October of the same year to Abu Hamad and enabled the supply of Kitchener's forces, which were stored until January 1898 on the Nile between Abu Hamad and Atbara. The victorious battle against the army of the Mahdi took place on April 8, 1898 a few miles south-east of Atbara in Nakheila place on the north bank of the Atbara River. After the railway line was built further and reached on July 3, 1898 Atbara. So could be transported by train to Atbara this month three decomposed gunboats which came against the Mahdi in the decisive battle for use.
1906 began the construction of a branch line of the railway to the port of Port Sudan, which won by the expansion of cotton cultivation in the mid- 1920s in importance. Atbara was at the junction of the two main railway lines to the national railway center. Until 1924 the station was operated by the staff of Egyptian and British military battalions, then by the Sudan Railways. In 1939, the Sudan Railways is the largest industrial employer in the country; most of the 20,000 employees were based in Atbara.
In the 1940s there were over 300 different gradations in the work hierarchy and wages. Inequities and everyday racism of the British supervisor led in 1946 under the railway workers establishing the first trade union in Sudan. From a strike, which was conducted with the support of Egyptian Trade Unions, was in 1947 one of the most radical union movements in colonial Africa. The railroad workers had close relations with the Communist Party ( Sudanese Communist Party, SCP). With the rejection of President Numairi from communism in the late 1970s was accompanied by an expansion of the road to reduce the strategic importance of the railroad and thus the power of the union. 1981 smashed Numairi the railway union. 1990 Thousands of railway employees were laid off; repair works are carried out in the large factory buildings only.
Economy
Atbara is a major railroad hub for the transport of goods and has the only ones present in constant operation repair shops in the country. South of the Atbara River is one of the largest cement factories Sudan. The production of the Atbara Cement Company Ltd.. was 2002 154.300 tonnes in 2001 139.300 tons per year. It was built in 1947 as a first cement factory. The cement production in the country has to be supplemented by imports from Egypt because of increased demand by the boom in the oil industry, which has been held since 1999.
Cityscape
After time as a fortified British military camp urban development was carried out by the investment of segregated populations districts. Atbara is divided by the railway line strictly into two halves. In the east, the densely built, vibrant market center, with two - and three-story, faceless concrete buildings. West of the railway line, the railway district is (in general: Sikka Hadid ), a vast and exclusive district of the former British residents, which extends up to a kilometer away Nilufer. It was laid out with wide, shady avenues, a street grid, the brick bungalows with gardens behind high walls made of the same bricks are well preserved. Were closer to the railway line, the British terraced houses and the building of stations along typical brick conical roof rondavels for Egyptian railway workers. One kilometer south of the center is located in the area of the pier Nilfähre a modern residential area.
Infrastructure
About two kilometers south of the center crosses the local traffic the Atbara River on a narrow two-lane iron bridge, a new road bridge for heavy traffic located three kilometers upstream. Trains over the old Atbara railway bridge. Halfway between Atbara and ad - Damir is a bridge over the Nile. The Atbara Airport is served by Khartoum.