Nubians Demand Right to Return to Ancestral Lands In Egypt

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Aswan Court has ordered the continued detention of 24 Nubians for participating in an unauthorized protest three days earlier until Sept 13 when he is set to review the case.

Wednesday’s decision comes after dozens of Nubians had set out on a march in the Upper Egypt city of Aswan demanding their constitutional right to return to their ancestral land around an Aswan High Dam lake, whose waters flooded much of their villages.

They face charges including taking part in an illegal protest and blocking public roads.

Nubians, an ethnic minority that traces its roots back to an ancient civilization on the Nile, have been forcibly displaced four times in the last century, most recently in 1964 with the construction of the Aswan High Dam.