Khartoum North
In the Mahdist War of 1884/85, General Gordon's first fight was to rescue a few Shaiqiya, still serving with the invader and besieged in a fort at Al Halfaya, just north of Khartoum. The fortress at Al-Ubayyid in 1883, was held by Major Ahmed Hussein Pasha (Suarab Section) and despite Hicks Pasha's attempt to relieve him, the fortress fell to the Mahdi. (Major Hussein escaped to Egypt in 1891 and came back during the reconquest in 1898. His family still resides in Omdurman, Khartoum North and Hajar al Asal.) His grand children went far as Germany and America where they go by the name of Hussein.