(AFP) — Moses once parted the Red Sea and now Osama bin Laden’s half-brother is planning to build a bridge over it.The proposed bridge would link Yemen to Djibouti, creating a man-made link between the Middle East and Africa.
Costing 14 billion euros ($23.5 billion), stretching around 28.5 kilometres and encompassing a six-lane motorway and a four-track railway, the bridge would be of Biblical proportions.
Meanwhile, the man behind it bears a familiar name, too – Tarek bin Laden, half-brother of the Al Qaeda leader.
Tarek, a Saudi construction magnate, has been lobbying the Yemen and Djibouti governments to back the project, which would create a direct link between Arabia and east Africa, without the need to travel by the Sinai peninsula.
Djibouti Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dileita said his government was not actively involved.
“The project fell on us from the sky with the proposal by Osama bin Laden’s brother, who has a construction company in Saudi Arabia,” Mr Dileita told AFP.
“People are talking about it a lot here – the Yemenis are convinced the project will be carried out with Saudi and Emirates’ funds to connect the Arab world to Africa.”
New cities
The plan envisages building new cities at either end of the bridge, which would itself in fact be a combination of bridges, with a stop-off point in the centre of the “Bab ed Mandeb” (Gates of Hell) straights at Perim Island.
“Numerous American, Yemeni and even French businesses are taking part in the project,” the Prime Minister said.
“But the big advantage will be to take millions of African Muslims to Mecca, by train or by bus.”
Indeed, on top of the commercial and logistic aspects, one of the key attractions of the bridge is spiritual – serving as an easier crossing for millions of African Muslims who make the pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, each year.
One of the new cities at either end of the bridge would be called the City of Light (Medinet an Noor) and at 600 square kilometres would be six times the land mass of Paris and serve as a trade, commercial and tourist hub for anticipated traffic.
“We don’t yet know if it will be in the north of Djibouti or in Yemen,” Mr Deleita said.
The bridge would in total measure around 28.5 kilometres, including a 3.5 kilometre link to the island and a final 13 kilometre crossing to Africa — the longest suspension bridge in the world.
That, the developers say, could create 100,000 construction jobs over the 10-year build time.
Major obstacles
However, there are major obstacles in the way, both man-made and natural.
The bridge will cross a site known for intense seismic activity.
In 1978, massive tectonic plate movement triggered an eruption from Djibouti’s Ardoukoba volcano and an earthquake measuring between three and 5.3 on the Richter scale.
The lava flows radically altered the seabed.
Yet the Ministry which looks after Djibouti’s environment says it is confident the project design can plan for such acts of nature.
The general secretary of the Ministry for the Environment, Towns and Urban Planning, Aboubakar Douale Waiss, says such tectonic plate shifts are not something that happens suddenly, but are generally predictable.
“So the key is for architects to come up with plans which take into account these movements,” he said.
Port trade
Another potential dilemma is the fate of Djibouti’s port, which currently handles more than 120,000 vehicles a year, mostly on business to and from Ethiopia.
A road bridge would seriously dent that trade.
But Mr Waiss insisted the increased economic and political stability of Djibouti will be enough to support both bridge and port.
“The bridge and the port are complementary,” he said.
“There are huge populations in the areas behind Djibouti – 80 million in Ethiopia alone – and the traffic will just continue to grow.”
Finally, as the United States and France have substantial military bases in Djibouti, there are fears the new link will prove a tempting terrorist target, or simply provide easier access to some of the impoverished states in the Horn of Africa for Islamic extremists.
15 thoughts on “A bridge over Red Sea is being planned”
Hi Editor:
I believe you should give a lot of coverage about the land given to the Sudan by the woyanes and the suffering of the farmers in that area. You should give it your utmost coverage due to the seriousness of the situation.
Elias
Do you really think we Ethiopians give rats ass about a bridge being built FOR or AT the Red Sea in the middle of no where? If you really care about Ethiopia you should focus on the current URGENT story of the portion of Ethiopia’s land given Sudan curtousy of TPLF thugs.
Dear Editor:
Please specify the location and name of the land-area annexed to the Sudan. It is not enough to tell us Sudan took part of Ethiopia unless you give detailed acount of how the were able to get that piece of land. though we are not rich we a proud nation that flogged Europeans on the African continent. Do not forget the Adowa victory.
Who is going to be beneficial of this bridge?
Is the idea coming from Djubitian or Yemens?
Some one wants to make money. Easy, just dream
a project somewhere in the third world and that
it is.
Poor Africa. Every day becomes experimental place.
How the land in Begemder which is donated to Sudan.
The Nile for Egypt and the land for Sudan.
emama ethiopia begs food.
It is just a bridge for the Arabs to exploit Africa (whatever is left from the former colonialists)
surprising to hear bad comments. Nothing wrong with having the largest bridge next to the nose of Ethiopia. People dont always think that things must start to develop only after Woyane leaves. Wake uo guys. This is something which stays forever to generations to come. I find it not feasible since the arab world will not be happy that Eth will significantly benefit out of it
Gemechissa
Koratu (if you are indeed koratu)
Do you in your healthy mental state believe that EPRDF would give an inch of land to a foreign country? If you do, it is a hatred politics charged one.
Let alone for EPRDF to give land to Sudan,it is collecting back heritages/historical artifacts that your unprudent and unwise fathers and grandfathers surrendered to the other side and failed to heed them for years.
This is the truth
Rest assured, there is no government and party in Ethiopia that gives its land to any other country.
It is the fabrication and hallucination of Elias the Eritrean crazy man.
Osama bin Laden’s half-brother???
We africans do not like to connect with the arrogants arabs with bridge. we have one arab who is working with weyanes and stealing our natural resources. So osama’s brother should not ask only yemen and djibouti, but also other african’s countries like ethiopia should give it’s yes or no vote for the construction of the bridge. I think the bridge will allow to export more terrorists from arab countries to Africa. so let the USA’s servant arabs support so0malians instead of building bridge between two poor countries.
A bridge that links two old civilizations: the Arabs’ and the Africans’
The early settlers of Babylonia tried to build the Tower of Babel, perhaps, to connect earth to heaven, but God was not pleased with them and scattered them all over the world before they finished their project, and now the bin Ladens are planning to build a bridge to connect the Middle East with Africa to help the African Muslims’ hegira to Mecca more easier than ever, and at the same time to double the death tolls of those Muslim pilgrims at Mecca as a result of too many people because of the easy transportation access through the new bridge to Mecca.
The goal of the builders of the Tower of Babel, according to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Tirgum on the Tower of Babel, was to find God and ridicule him, but the goal of Tarek bin Laden in planning to build a new bridge is to connect the African spiritual Muslims with the other spiritual Arab Muslims at Mecca; the new bridge also helps to connect Arab terrorists with African Islamist terrorists. This new bridge will easily bring to the Arab world AIDS, drugs, alcohol, and many other illegal activities from the other world. When such immoralities spread all over the Arab world, then God will be angry, and he will destroy the new bridge as he destroyed the Tower of the Babel
Moses crossed the Red Sea by building a spiritual and heavenly bridge in the minds of the Israelites; the unspiritual Pharaoh tried to cross the Red Sea without a physical bridge, but he and his army were drawn instantly in the Read Sea because they were not spiritual, and they needed a physical bridge to cross the Red Sea.
This time, however, we do not know whether the new bridge is going to be built just for spiritual purposes or for both spiritual and commercial purposes. The initiator of this new building is a man related to the criminal Osama bin Laden who might have a reason in planning to build such a big bridge unless it is to expand the territories of his brother Osama bin laden, and if the new bridge is for such an evil purpose, then God, who examines the hearts and thoughts of all human beings, will destroy it or never allow such a bridge to exist on the quiet and peaceful Red Sea.
The new bridge, if built as planned, will diminish the story of the miraculous crossings of the Red Sea by the Israelites thousands of years ago. The unspiritual Tarek bin will replace the spiritual Moses; his unspiritual brother, Osama bin Laden, will replace the spiritual Aaron; and the unspiritual Arab Muslims will replace the ancient spiritual Israelites.
On the other hand, if the new bridge is built for commercial reasons, it will bring more harm and fewer benefits to the African and to the Arab world. For example, food prices and other household commodities will be more expensive than they are now as more rich Arabs come to Africa and buy more farming products at a high price and leave empty the peasants’ granaries. More fishermen from all over the world, using the new bridge, will deplete the Red Sea fish with their modern fishing equipments. Another harm the new bridge will bring to some of the African people is that the Sudanese Janjawits will sell the black Sudanese children to the Arab world there by humiliating the black race.
The new cities that will be built at the two ends of the new bridge will attract millions of prostitutes and with that the rapid spread of AIDS and diseases. The human waste from these two new cities will pile up and create environmental hazards to the ecosystems surrounding the Red Sea as people carelessly dump their trashes into the red Sea. Whenever the new bridge is bombed by some Islamist terrorists, the citizens of the two new cities will suffer extensively and will not be able to get a quick response to their problems because of the collapse of the new bridge. Also, the economy of the Djibouti will be affected if this city continues to depend on the new bridge instead of on its old port.
The benefit of the new bridge is that it may hire thousands of people to build it and hundreds of people to maintain it. The two new cities also may give new permanent and temporary jobs to millions of Arabs, Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and other African and Arab people. The dominant language used for communication will be Arabic and English, perhaps. Meles and his friends will heavily invest their fortunes in these two new cities by buying new houses and lands.
Finally, Mecca is in the heart of Tarek bin Laden when he is planning to build the new bridge; Jerusalem was in the heart of Moses when he divided the Red Sea and crossed it; heavenly Jerusalem was in the heart of Jesus when he taught and died in this earthly Jerusalem; Abay Tigray is in the heart of Meles Seitanawi when he annexed the Gondar lands to Tigray. The spread of Islam all over the world was in the heart of Osama bin Laden when he bombed different cities at different times.
Almost every person in this world has something good or bad before he/she begins to do something significant in his/her generation; however, the worst thing is never to try something at all in one’s life. If I am asked to give a new name to the new bridge, I will call it Moses and Aaron Bridge.
Hialeab, there is no more important land to Ethiopian survival than the land of afar. Your leaders gave that land. Do you also remember badma, after you sacrifice all those young people your leaders again, they travel all the way to Europe and witness in front of the court that some part of that land belongs to Eritrea. Even Badma temporarily saved from your leaders by the majority of the tigry population. You perfectly knew all this, but unlike the rest of us you have to make a living selling your own country.
.
I think most ethiopians did not even hear yet about the ethiopians lands given to Sudan! We must call ethiopia and talk to the so called parlament members and invite them on Interviews. We must send as many emails or faxes as possible to ethiopia. We must Protest Demonstrations have to be organized around the world! We must jam weyane embassy faxes and phones. Are there any ethiopian activists to organize meetings or demos on this matter?
I totally agree with yikerebelen comment. The territory of Djibouti legally belonged to Ethiopia before Mengistu let it go for France making Ethiopia a landlocked country. Let Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia forge true friendship and good neighborhoods and bring peace to the region before they think of bridge. The bridge would bring more exploitation and hardship to Africans slaves who are being forced to live their birthplaces due to the endless conflict in the region.
Dear Tazabi,
We don’t need Djibouti, and we don’t need Somalia, but we badly need Eritrea; without Eritrea, there is no good life in Ethiopia.If we get Eritrea, then Djibouti and Somalia will be ours through friendly talks, nagotations,and persuasions.
Dear Tazabi,
We don’t need Djibouti, and we don’t need Somalia, but we badly need Eritrea; without Eritrea, there is no good life in Ethiopia.If we get Eritrea, then Djibouti and Somalia will be ours through friendly talks, negotiations,and persuasions.