Photo|courtesy

Upper Nile’s government and the National Ministry of Water and Irrigation have allocated land for the evacuation of households occupying an irrigation site in Malakal as the Egyptian government seeks to revive the scheme.

On Thursday, Governor James Odhok Oyay, the national Director General of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation met with Egyptian water officials to assess the rehabilitation of the dilapidated Al-Rai Al-Masry infrastructure.

The move is reportedly to reinforce the Bilateral Technical Cooperation between South Sudan and Egypt in water resource development.

The meeting is also said to signify a collaborative effort to enhance water resource management as stipulated in the cooperation agreement between the two countries.

In his remark on the state-run SSBC TV on Thursday, Mr Wol Gordon Tong who is the Director General of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation said they allocated a place for families that have been sheltering at the facility since 2013.

” We have allocated an area of 3 km to move the citizens living in Al-Rai Al-Masry to vacate the place. The citizens were aware that the Egyptian delegation was coming to take over the site,” he said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian Irrigation Official Eng. Hassan Salama Hassan said they came to Malakal to evaluate the facilities which abandoned in 2013 during the civil war to restore the irrigation scheme.

“We are today [Thursday] in Malakal to inspect and evaluate the facilities until we restore the mission working in the place.

” We sought to restore Egyptian irrigation in the city of Malakal that was before the events of 2013 and to provide services that were available before such as education, opening a clinic, as well as connecting electricity, he said.

The facility linked to the Egyptian permanent headquarters in Malakal, which included 64 rest houses, a building for the Nilometer, a river marina, an ice factory, maintenance workshops, small schools for teaching crafts, and a medical clinic that provided free treatment to citizens, was established during the reign of King Farouk which dated back to about 100 years ago.