UN Recognizes TutI Island as Champion of Disaster Risk Reduction
31 October, 2015KHARTOUM (SUDANOW)—Tuti Island is experiencing these days a tremendous media bonfire after it was named among the world's best eight places in using the traditional skills and local cultures for controlling risks of disasters, particularly the floods.
The Island community will be honored in an international celebration to be held in Cairo, Egypt, next November, according to the coordinator of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Bushra Hamid Ahmed.
The Story of the Award:-
The Deputy Secretary-General of the Center for Documentation of the History of Tuti Island, Mohamed Abdul Wahab, said the award for the role of the local communities for the control of disasters, emerged from a relevant international conference organized by the Disasters and Refugees Studies Institute in Khartoum-based International African University in April 2014. The conference nominated Tut Island for Sasakawa international award to be given to the best disaster-control communities. Several Sudanese communities presented to the two-day conference their experiences in disaster control. Those communities included Tuti Island, Sheikh al-Siddeik Village in the White Nile State and Gash River in Kassala, east Sudan. After reviewing those examples at a seminar in the presence of Zayd Environment Institute, Tuti Island community was selected for nomination to the Award.
Tuti's History & Community:-
Tuti Island is 5 million square meters, lies at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles on altitude 30 with Khartoum to the south, Shambat to the north, Khartoum North to the east and Omdurman to the west of it.
Nobody knows the exact date on which its people came to reside on it but it is certainly 150 to 200 years before the birth of Sheikh Arbab Al-Agayd in 1535 and died in 1620. His great grandfathers lived on the Island and so did his disciples- Sheikh Khojali Abul Jazz and Sheikh Hamad wad Um Maryom- who were famous scholars of the Holy Koran.
The 18,000-strong Tuti community is characterized by a spirit of fraternity, brotherhood and interaction and every Islander interacts with everything that occurs on the Island. The inhabitants are called by a loudspeaker for meetings to discuss issues of common concern, like one announcement for a meeting these days for selecting a representative to receive the award and another meeting to prepare for welcoming visitors. Everything is discussed and agreed upon in consensus.
Tuti was extolled by a number of poets, including Tigani Yusuf Beshir who wrote the famous "TUTI" poem which is recited every morning by school children as it has become part of the syllabus more than half a century ago.
Tuti itself has a large number of poets- men and women. The poets and singers are inspired by the beauty of the green scenery and fine breeze of the river.
Tuti experience of confronting the flood:-
Mohamed Abdul Wahab, the director of the center for documentation of Tuti events that was established in 2000, said the Island was subjected to four very high floods in the 20th Century in 1946, 1976, 1988 and 1998. Abdul Wahab said his center documented the occurrences of those floods and the commendable accomplishments by the inhabitants in dealing with the disastrous floods, particularly that of 1946, and how all sectors of the community worked together for saving their Island.
The 1946 flood occurred during the Holy month of Ramadan while the Islanders were fasting, as usual, and just before the sunset breakfast, the observers beat the barrels, the only method used at that time to announce the imminent Blue Nile flood. Soon upon hearing the alarm, the inhabitants left meals and rushed to the bank and continued fasting until the next day. This was commemorated by a local woman poet called Saadah in a famous poem that is now sung by singer Hamad al-Rayah (from Tuti) and known across the country. Women continued all night and the following day singing to encourage the men and sometimes help them by bringing the sandbags for building banks and closing the openings to push away the flooding river.
Once there was a shortage in sandbags, the people blocked the water by lining themselves up against the water until the bags came.
Abdul Wahab went on saying that the vigorous action by the Islanders was similar with all floods of the Blue Nile. In 1988 the bank of the river was divided into a number of sections, each with one group of people working in 24-hour shifts. The sandbags were brought by a ferry which was not available in 1946 but the successive governments after the independence provided the Island with the sandbags and other implements needed for erecting the barricades to protect the Island against the vigorous flood.
The women erected tents in the vicinity preparing food for the groups of men on a 24-hour alert ready to swiftly respond to the barrel beat or watching out for any break in the barricade through which the river might attack.
Those traditional systems of flood warnings have ensured little or no loss of life in major flood events and they live in harmony with the river Nile, as the head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, said when she announced the eight champions of disaster risk reduction during celebration of the International Day for Disaster Reduction on 13 October.
“These communities in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Italy, UK, Philippines, Sudan and Vanuatu are on the front line of extreme weather and seismic events. They all have one other thing in common and that is social cohesion which is vitally important in reducing disaster losses. Sustainable development and the eradication of poverty are not possible without such efforts to manage disaster risk.” she added.
Vulnerable spots:-
According to Abdul Wahab, there are certain dangerous areas through which the flooding river usually attacks. He named those areas as Shaweesh and Burgan east of the Island and Haleez area where the observers are on maximum alert.
Tuti Resistance to the British Colonialists:-
In 1944 during the British colonialism, the English attempted to confiscate 350 feddans (acres) from Tuti Island which administratively belonged to Khartoum North Rural Council, something which the inhabitants were opposed to and went to see the British local administrator who permitted six men to meet him. When the delegation came out, their leader Mustafa Khalid told the waiting people of the Island that they had reached an impasse and that the administrator told the delegation that the 350-feddan plot would be confiscated and said: " The land will be confiscated, whether you like it or not… and do whatever you want." The Islanders got angry and broke and torched the offices of the administration. And an ensuing riot erupted and fighting broke out between the people and the English, leading to the death of Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf Suleiman from Tuti. This incident made the British abandon the confiscation plan.
During the 1946 flood which endangered the Island, the British rulers brought ships and asked the inhabitants to leave the Island to save their lives from the danger. Yet the Islanders insisted on staying in the Island to protect it and they succeeded.
Impact of the Bridge on Tuti Community:-
Tuti community upholds its deep-rooted correlation both on pleasant and unpleasant occasions and the recently built bridge linking the Island with Khartoum did not have a negative impact on the social life but, instead, positively affected the life. It has facilitated the movement of the Islanders, particularly for taking their products, mainly fruits and vegetables, to Khartoum markets and visiting their relatives in other parts of the State of Khartoum, Abdul Wahab said.
A number of Tuti inhabitants last year paid a visit to Gamy area of north Sudan from which their ancestors, from Nubian Mahas tribe, migrated to Tuti in the 14th or 15th century. Abdul Wahab quoted Kamal al-Dinn Ahmed al-Sheikh al-Beshir, a member of the visitors, as saying the people showed them the ruins of the houses of their ancestors before they migrated and told them that they kept these houses generation after generation hoping that they might come back.
Gamy appeared saddened for the departure of the delegation but it would certainly be happy and proud if it knew that its sons had won the prize of the best international communities for disasters control and for protecting their new home-Island.
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MAS/ AS
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