A rectangular piece of land with an area of 2,060 square kilometers, bordering Egypt in the north, and from the west, south and east with Sudan, was a no man’s land as the two countries that were closest to it abandoned their claims. Bir Tawil was named in honor of a now non-existent water source.
On November 7, an Indian man, Suyash Dixit, proclaimed himself the king of Bir Tawil. Before Dixit, in 2015, an American citizen named Jeremy Keaton called the land the Kingdom of North Sudan and wanted to make his daughter a princess.
However, after Zhikharev heard that the Indian man was trying to take over his kingdom, Zhikarev wrote a letter to TJ Journal explaining how he is the rightful owner and that he already has a valid passport and plans to go to Bir Tawil for the third time.
He also brought up arguments as to why he believes Suyash Dixit is not being honest about his trip to the land.
“Mr. Dixit claims that he left Abu Simbel at 4 am. Looking at the satellite images of that area, you would immediately discover a 10 km gap between Abu Simbel and the other side of the Nile River. To get to the other side of the Nile to where you could theoretically continue the path towards Bir-Tawil, you need to cross the Nile by ferry,” Zhikarev wrote in his letter to TJ Journal.
Talking about the claim that Dixit made regarding crossing into Bir Tawil through Egypt, Zhikarev told TJ Journal that that’s a lie because the Egyptian military has an order to fire at any moving target without warning.
“This means that in order for one of the foreigners to visit the area, they must first meet with the local head of the Egyptian Army and the head of the Egyptian police to obtain such permission. It is highly unlikely that such a permit would be issued. We know this very well, because we ourselves tried to get it,” Zhikarev wrote in his letter to TJ Journal.
He believes that after an unsuccessful attempt to get to Bir Tawil, Dixit did the same trick as another so-called "applicant," US farmer Jeremy Keaton, who took some pictures in the Egyptian desert near El Shalatin.
Zhikarev requested TJ Journal get to the bottom of this situation by asking Dixit to provide the images he took with a geotag or with the complete GPS tracking of his trip.
