Sinai Peninsula
More actions
| Sinai Peninsula | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 28.75, 33.60 |
| Country | Egypt |
| Provinces/States | South Sinai Governorate,North Sinai Governorate |
| Area | 56,600 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Sinai Peninsula is a cannabis growing region in Egypt, on the peninsula between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba. It is drawn on the South Sinai and North Sinai governorates; the farms reported there lie in the mountains of South Sinai and in central Sinai. In 1994 the Egyptian authorities destroyed seven million cannabis plants in the Sinai region, where, with the Nile valley in southern Egypt, the country's cannabis and opium growing was concentrated.[1] The army, the border guards and the police have reported destroying cannabis farms there since, among them 124 farms of poppy and bango in the area of Wadi Feiran in 2014[2] and 145 feddans of bango in the mountain areas of South Sinai in 2022.[3]
Geography
The peninsula joins Africa to Asia and covers about 61,000 km². The Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal lie to its west, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Negev to its east, the Mediterranean to the north and the Red Sea to the south. Its south is a mass of high mountains, among them Mount Catherine, at 2,642 m, and Mount Sinai; north of them a plateau, two-thirds of the peninsula, falls from more than 900 m to the Mediterranean. Administratively the peninsula is divided between the governorates of North Sinai and South Sinai.[4]
The cannabis farms reported destroyed since 2014 lay in central Sinai and in South Sinai, where the reports name the Wadi Feiran area, Abu Redeis and the mountain areas.[2][5][3][6]
Cultivation history
Before 2000
The United States Department of State reported in March 1995 that cannabis and opium growing in Egypt was a small but growing problem, concentrated in remote areas of the Sinai region and along the Nile in southern Egypt. An eradication campaign in the Sinai region in 1994 destroyed over 10.3 million poppy plants and seven million cannabis plants; cannabis growing and eradication had both increased significantly. The Anti-Narcotics General Administration ran it with materials and technical support from the Ministry of Agriculture.[1]
Since 2000
The head of security in Suez, General Adel Rifaat, said in September 2012 that cannabis farmers had used the weak security in Sinai since the uprising of 2011 to expand their growing, and that the lack of operations against the crops had led to a large production of bango, as marijuana is called in Egyptian slang. Police had stopped a truck carrying 15 tonnes of it as it tried to leave the peninsula through a tunnel under the Suez Canal, towards the Nile valley. A researcher of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said that the cannabis grown in Egypt was mostly consumed in the country.[7]
In January 2014 the journalist Tom Dale reported from the opium fields of the South Sinai mountains, where the Bedouin growers' opium season runs from November to May; in the other months they might find casual work or work on the summer cannabis harvest. A coordinator of the South Sinai Community Foundation estimated that the production of opium and marijuana had doubled since 2010 and gave work to some 45 per cent of South Sinai's Bedouin men at some time in the year. Most of the land on which the drugs were grown was technically owned by the army; those who owned it under local tribal law took half the crop and the workers took the rest.[8]
The army reported in March 2014 that its campaigns against drug crops in central and South Sinai had seized 124 farms of poppy and bango in the Wadi Feiran area, 70 feddans (about 29 hectares) in all, and 56 more farms in a second wadi.[2] A campaign of the police and the armed forces against drug plants in Sinai seized 48 feddans planted with cannabis in March 2017, and in May it destroyed eleven more farms, six feddans in all, in the Sihet Sedra valley at Abu Redeis, in South Sinai.[5] In July 2020 the police destroyed four bango farms, two feddans in all, in a mountain area of the Abu Redeis police district, and seized dried bango, seed and two irrigation machines; the farms belonged to a farmer living in the district.[9]
In central Sinai, an army statement of January 2018 on operations of the Third Field Army reported six farms used for growing cannabis destroyed, with a store holding a ton of cannabis.[6] In June 2022 the border guards, with the Third Field Army and the Ministry of the Interior, destroyed 145 feddans of bango farms on rugged plains and in places that are hard to reach, and seized four tonnes of dried bango, 107 kilograms of hashish, 700 kilograms of seed, two hashish factories and a hashish press. The statement described the campaign as part of an effort against the growers and dealers in the mountain areas of South Sinai.[3]
Growing Areas
No growing areas documented yet.
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (March 1995). "Egypt". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (Report). Washington, DC: United States Department of State. Retrieved 21 October 2026 – via American University of Beirut, Almashriq archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 El-Sherif, Ahmed (20 March 2014). الجيش: تدمير 13 نفق تهريب وضبط 180 مزرعة للمواد المخدرة [The army: 13 smuggling tunnels destroyed and 180 drug farms seized]. Masrawy (in العربية). Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Salem, Maha (19 June 2022). تدمير 145 فدان بانجو و59 فدانًا من الهيدرو في نشاط مكثف لقوات حرس الحدود على الاتجاهات الإستراتيجية للدولة [145 feddans of bango and 59 feddans of hydro destroyed in intensive activity of the border guard forces on the state's strategic fronts]. Bawabat al-Ahram (in العربية). Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ "Sinai Peninsula". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "11 cannabis farms seized, destroyed in South Sinai". Egypt Independent. Al-Masry Al-Youm. 18 May 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Security forces arrests 3 takfirists, destroy cannabis farms: Army Spokesperson". Egypt Independent. Al-Masry Al-Youm. 16 January 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ "Egypt seizes 15 tonnes of marijuana in Sinai, biggest ever drug haul". Ahram Online. Reuters. 26 September 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Dale, Tom (10 January 2014). "Growing Opium Is All the Sinai Bedouins Have Left". Vice. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ إبادة 4 مزارع بانجو فى جبال جنوب سيناء [Four bango farms destroyed in the mountains of South Sinai]. Mobtada (in العربية). 9 July 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2026.