When Egypt built the Aswan high dam in the 1960s, it brought a new source of power for the country and wrestled control over annual floods. It came at the cost of relocating tens of thousands of Nubians who were destined to see their homeland sink below the newly created Lake Nasser once the dam was finalized.

Nubians have been promised compensation land by numerous governments in Egypt, but now, more than 60 years later, they are still waiting. Some live in temporary housing that they have made more colorful, and a few in new communities built in the middle of nowhere.

The story was placed on National Geographic online.