Aug 18, 2024
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Deadly Drone Strike Ravages Dilling, Killing Over 70
Fight Famine in the Kordofans
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At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured after a suspected drone strike hit a prison in Sudan's North Kordofan region, according to
A suspected drone strike launched by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hit a prison in the southern region of Kordofan on Saturday and killed at least 20 inmates, authorities said. Fifty other detainees were wounded in the attack on the main prison in Obeid, the capital city of North Kordofan, Information Minister Khalid Aleiser said in a statement.
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George Rodger. Kao Nyaro tribesman. Sudan, Kordofan. 1949
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Kordofan melons from Sudan are the closest relatives and may be progenitors of modern, cultivated watermelons. Wild watermelon seeds were found in Uan Muhuggiag, a prehistoric site in Libya that dates to approximately 3500 BC. Watermelons were domesticated in north-east Africa, and cultivated in Egypt by 2000 BC, although they were not the sweet modern variety. Sweet dessert watermelons spread across the Mediterranean world during Roman times.
Many 5000-year-old wild watermelon seeds (C. lanatus) were discovered at Uan Muhuggiag, a prehistoric archaeological site located in southwestern Libya. This archaeobotanical discovery may support the possibility that the plant was more widely distributed in the past.
In the 7th century, watermelons were being cultivated in India, and by the 10th century had reached China. The Moors introduced the fruit into the Iberian Peninsula, and there is evidence of it being cultivated in Córdoba in 961 and also in Seville in 1158. It spread northwards through southern Europe, perhaps limited in its advance by summer temperatures being insufficient for good yields. The fruit had begun appearing in European herbals by 1600, and was widely planted in Europe in the 17th century as a minor garden crop.
Early watermelons were not sweet, but bitter, with yellowish-white flesh. They were also difficult to open. Through breeding, watermelons later tasted better and were easier to open.
European colonists and enslaved people from Africa introduced the watermelon to the New World. Spanish settlers were growing it in Florida in 1576. It was being grown in Massachusetts by 1629, and by 1650 was being cultivated in Peru, Brazil and Panama. Around the same time, Native Americans were cultivating the crop in the Mississippi valley and Florida. Watermelons were rapidly accepted in Hawaii and other Pacific islands when they were introduced there by explorers such as Captain James Cook. In the Civil War era United States, watermelons were commonly grown by free African people and became one symbol for the abolition of slavery. After the Civil War, African people were maligned for their association with watermelon. The sentiment evolved into a racist stereotype where Africn people shared a supposed voracious appetite for watermelon, a fruit long correlated with laziness and uncleanliness.
Seedless watermelons were initially developed in 1939 by Japanese scientists who were able to create seedless triploid hybrids which remained rare initially because they did not have sufficient disease resistance. Seedless watermelons became more popular in the 21st century, rising to nearly 85% of total watermelon sales in the United States in 2014
A melon from the Kordofan region of Sudan – the kordofan melon – may be the progenitor of the modern, domesticated watermelon. The kordofan melon shares with the domestic watermelon loss of the bitterness gene, while maintaining a sweet taste, unlike other wild African varieties from other regions, indicating a common origin, possibly cultivated in the Nile Valley by 4360 BP (before present)
SUDAN. Kordofan. 1975. A group of Nuba dancers of Cau, who inhabited the Nuba Mountains in Kordofan province (before it was split into the three states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan).
© Leni Riefenstahl