The Merowe Dam was the first dam to be built on the Nile in Sudan. The dam cost $ 2.2billion and has been deemed controversial for flooding 170 km of the river valley in the Fourth Cataract region, displacing 70,000 people and drowning the cultural heritage that could not be recorded during a hectic salvage campaign. The government of Sudan is now proceeding to build more dams on the Nile with the conscquence that the fertile Nile Valley in northern Sudan will be flooded and transformed into a series of water reservoirs with immense effects for the landscape, the people, and the heritage. Local activist groups resisting the building of dams have now been joined by a European and an American Committee for protecting the Middle Nile from further dams.