ash-shalatin

Ash Shalatin
Coordinates	23 ° 8 ' N , 35 ° 35' E Coordinates: 23 ° 8 ' N , 35 ° 35' E
Basic data
Country	Egypt
Governorate	al-Bahr al-ahmar
ISO 3166-2	EG-BA
Residents	6731 (2006-11-11)

Ash Shalatin ( Arabic شلاتين Shalātīn ; Consistent street signs : al Shalaten - other spellings: Bi'r Schalatain , Bir Shelatin , Shalatin u. a.) is a city in Egypt on the northern border of the Hala'ib triangle .

Geographical location

Mountains in the vicinity of Ash-Shalatin

It is located around 250 km south of Marsa Alam and represents the administrative border with Sudan . The - disputed - political border is still around 140 km further south, but this is where the official customs and passport control are located; the “no man's land” in between, also known as the Hala'ib triangle , has been under Egyptian administration again since 2000 .

population

According to the census of November 11, 2006, the city of Ash-Shalatin had 6,731 inhabitants. The local Raschaid clad in purple galabiyyas are a Bedouin tribe who have grown rich through camel breeding . They buy the animals to this day from the ethnic groups of the Bishop and Ababda from Sudan, who are only allowed to drive them here. Their status symbols are the whip and the crook knife.

history

The city and its surroundings were a restricted area until 2004 and could only be approached with appropriate papers from Hurghada or Cairo .

Attractions

The city, which is about 5 km from the coast, is now being approached by several coaches from the tourist centers. The city is only just beginning to develop a tourist infrastructure. A simple hotel has been found in the city since mid-2005.

To this day, the inhabitants are not used to any kind of tourism, which will only change very slowly due to the remote location. Men and women should therefore keep their body completely covered in this area. Photographs should only be taken after asking for permission. English speakers are very rare. In asch-Schalatin, alcohol is still regarded in public as a blasphemy worth punishing.

The camel market, a few kilometers south of the city, is worth seeing. However, only a few camels are driven for breeding, rather dromedaries are handled as work animals and young animals as meat suppliers. He should be visited in the early morning. On Fridays (Islamic rest day), operations will cease at noon.

In the foreseeable future, the border to the Hala'ib triangle will open. 30 km from the border with Sudan , 20 to 25 km inland is the Gebel Elba National Park , which is a new tourist magnet.