On Saturday, Nuba celebrated the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People in Omdurman, the western part of Greater-Khartoum.
The original inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan celebrated the International Day, (annually celebrated over the world on 9 August) in a festival organised at El Buheira square in Ombadda, Omdurman, under the banner “Kuku knows”.
“Kuku is a very common name among the Nuba,” the head of the festival committee, Dr Shamshoun Khamis told Radio Dabanga. “Therefore we chose this name to stress our cultural inheritance, and the importance of including parts of it in the educational curriculum and the Constitution.”
The Nuba people speaking at the festival criticised the negligence of their cultures and artefacts by the official Sudanese media. Khamis explained that the Nuba “since long have been, and are still marginalised within their own country”. “We still suffer from racial discrimination and exclusion.”
Natalina Yagoub, student at El Ahfad University in Omdurman, crowned Miss Nuba of 2014, said that all the Nuba want is peace, noting that many of her relatives are suffering from the ongoing war in South Kordofan.
Picture above:andnbsp;Miss Nuba 2014 (in blue shirt) at the Nuba festival on 23 August. Below: International Day of the World’s Indigenous People in Omdurmanandnbsp;(Radio Dabanga).
