Abu Hamad

Abu Hamad (Arabic: أبو حمد, Sudanese Arabic: [abuˈħamad]), also spelled Abu Hamed, is a town of Sudan on the right bank of the Nile, 345 mi (555 km) by rail north of Khartoum. It stands at the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across the Nubian Desert, a little west of the old caravan route to Korosko. The population of Abu Hamad is 69,056. A branch railway, 138 mi (222 km) long, from Abu Hamad goes down the right bank of the Nile to Karima in the Dongola mudiria. A 19th-century traveler described the town:Abou-Hammed is a miserable village, inhabited by a few hundred Ababdehs and Bishàrees; the desert here extended to the water's edge, while the opposite banks were as green as emerald. There was a large mud fortress, with round bastions at the corners, to the west of the village. It formerly belonged to an Ababdeh shekh [sic] but was then deserted. The town is named after a celebrated sheikh buried here, by whose tomb travellers crossing the desert used formerly to deposit all superfluous goods, the sanctity of the saint's tomb ensuring their safety. The Battle of Abu Hamed, a part of the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan, took place near the town on 7 August 1897.