Khartoum is currently located in the heart of the city. A new international airport is currently being built about south of the city center. There have been delays to start construction because lack of funding of the project but it is expected that the airport will be completed sometime in 2018. It will replace the current airport in Khartoum as Sudan's main airport. Bridges over the Blue Nile connecting Khartoum to Khartoum North: Khartoum has rail lines from Wadi Halfa, Port Sudan on the Red Sea, and El Obeid. All are operated by Sudan Railways. Some lines also extended to some
Siege of Khartoum injustices caused by the Egyptian colonial administration: arbitrary imprisonments were cancelled, torture instruments were destroyed, and taxes were remitted. To enlist the support of the population, Gordon legalised slavery, despite the fact that he himself had abolished it a few years earlier. This decision was popular in Khartoum, but caused controversy in Britain. Gordon was determined to "smash up the Mahdi". He requested that a regiment of Turkish soldiers be sent to Khartoum as Egypt was still nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire. When this was refused, Gordon asked for a unit of Indian Muslim troops and later for