Between Egypt and Sudan there is a stretch of desert that neither country claims. The British drew two borders there, a straight line in 1899 and a crooked one in 1902, and each country holds to whichever line gives it the bigger, better piece next door, the Hala’ib Triangle on the Red Sea. Each of those lines hands the little piece to the other side. To ask for it, either country would first have to agree with its rival about where the border runs, and that would cost it the coast. So it isn’t unwanted, exactly. It is just wanted less than winning the argument. Meanwhile the Ababda, whose herds grazing there were the reason for the crooked line in the first place, still count it as theirs.