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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
Warning that river had flooded the road
Courtesy Robert O. Collins
Relief truck of the Norwegian People's Aid near Kapoeta in
eastern Al Istiwai in the 1990 rainy season
Courtesy Roger Winter
In 1990 Sudan's road system totaled between 20,000 and 25,000
kilometers, comprising an extremely sparse network for the size
of the country. Asphalted all-weather roads, excluding paved
streets in cities and towns, amounted to roughly 3,000 to 3,500
kilometers, of which the Khartoum-Port Sudan road accounted for
almost 1,200 kilometers. There were between 3,000 and 4,000
kilometers of gravel roads located mostly in the southern region
where lateritic road-building materials were abundant. In
general, these roads were usable all year round, although travel
might be interrupted at times during the rainy season. Most of
the gravel roads in southern Sudan have become unusable after
being heavily mined by the insurgent southern forces of the
Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
(see Civil Warfare in the South
, ch. 5). The remaining roads were little more than
fair-weather earth and sand tracks. Those in the clayey soil of
eastern Sudan, a region of great economic importance, were
impassable for several months during the rains. Even in the dry
season, earthen roads in the sandy soils found in various parts
of the country were generally usable only by motor vehicles
equipped with special tires.
Until the early 1970s, the government had favored the
railroads, believing they better met the country's requirements
for transportation and that the primary purpose of roads was to
act as feeders to the rail system. The railroads were also a
profitable government operation, and road competition was not
viewed as desirable. In the mid-1930s, a legislative attempt had
been made to prevent through-road transport between Khartoum and
Port Sudan. The law had little effect, but the government's
failure to build roads hindered the development of road
transportation. The only major stretch of road that had been
paved by 1970 was between Khartoum and Wad Madani. This road had
been started under a United States aid program in 1962, but work
had stopped in 1967 when Sudanese-United States relations were
broken over the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. United States
equipment was not removed, however, and was used by government
workers to complete the road in 1970.
Disillusionment with railroad performance led to a new
emphasis on roads in a readjustment of the Five-Year Plan in
1973--the so-called Interim Action Program--and a decision to
encourage competition between rail and road transport as the best
way to improve services. Paving of the dry-weather road between
Khartoum and Port Sudan via Al Qadarif and Kassala was the most
significant immediate step; this included upgrading of the
existing paved Khartoum-Wad Madani section. From Wad Madani to
Port Sudan, the road was constructed in four separate sections,
each by different foreign financing, and in the case of the Wad
Madani-Al Qadarif section, by direct participation of the
Chinese. Other section contractors included companies from Italy,
West Germany, and Yugoslavia. The last section opened in late
1980.
Other important road-paving projects of the early 1980s
included a road from Wad Madani to Sannar and an extension from
Sannar to Kusti on the White Nile completed in 1984. Since then
the paved road has been extended to Umm Ruwabah with the
intention to complete an all-weather road to Al Ubayyid.
Paradoxically, most truckers in 1990 continued to pass from
Omdurman to Al Ubayyid through the Sahelian scrub and the
qoz to avoid the taxes levied to use the faster and less
damaging paved road from Khartoum via Kusti.
A number of main gravel roads radiating from Juba were also
improved. These included roads to the towns southwest of Juba and
a road to the Ugandan border. In addition, the government built a
gravel all-weather road east of Juba that reaches the Kenyan
border. There it joined an all-weather road to Lodwar in Kenya
connecting it with the Kenyan road system. All these improvements
radiating from Juba, however, have been vitiated by the civil
war, in which the roads have been extensively mined by the SPLA
and the bridges destroyed, and because roads have not been
maintained, they have seriously deteriorated.
Small private companies, chiefly owner-operated trucks,
furnished most road transport. The government has encouraged
private enterprise in this industry, especially in the central
and eastern parts of the country, and the construction of allweather roads has reportedly led to rapid increases in the number
of hauling businesses. The Sudanese-Kuwaiti Transport Company, a
large government enterprise financed largely by Kuwait, began
operations in 1975 with 100 large trucks and trailers. Most of
its traffic was between Khartoum and Port Sudan. Use of road
transport and bus services is likely to increase as paved roads
are completed south of Khartoum in the country's main
agricultural areas.
Data as of June 1991
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