OT - Nile river transport

[John Ashworth]

Although still often referred to as "steamers", unfortunately there are no working steam boats on the Nile any more (as far as I know).

In the late 1980s and early '90s there was still a very well-preserved specimen aground on a sandbank a few kilometres south of Khartoum which we used to visit occasionally. By that time the war in the south had stopped regular river transport. Several Rhine cruise ships were sitting derelict in Khartoum Bahri. Convoys of freight and passenger barges (the latter being double-deckers and usually packed to overflowing with people, livestock and cooking fires) still went south under heavy military escort from time to time.

The ubiquitous water hyacinth which blocks the Nile in the Sudd played havoc with modern propeller-driven ships and in the early '80s a couple of paddle boats were resurrected to try and deal with it.

Nowadays the tugs are diesel, and they push several barges. These photos show a tug with a single barge leaving Juba in southern Sudan. It pulls out from the quay stern first, turns, and then heads north.

Photos by John Ashworth 17th April 2008