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A US man says he has claimed a kingdom in Africa so his daughter can be a princess.
Jeremiah Heaton, of Virginia, told the Bristol Herald Courier he recently trekked to a small, mountainous region between Egypt and Sudan called Bir Tawil. No country claims the land.
Heaton says he planted a flag designed by his children there so that he could become a king – and more importantly, so his 7-year-old daughter Emily could be a princess. They named the area the Kingdom of North Sudan.
“Emily, like most little girls, has a dream to become a princess,” Jeremiah Heaton said in a post on his Facebook page. “While playing one day she stopped and posed a question, ‘Daddy, will I ever be a real princess?’. The only answer I could give my sweet little girl was ‘Yes, of course you will be a princess one day!'”
So, he got to work.
“After weeks of research I discovered Bir Tawil,” Heaton explained. “This 795 sq mile trapezoid is a by-product of a 113 year old border dispute between Egypt and Sudan. Amazingly, Bir Tawil is the very last piece of Earth unclaimed by any Nation or man.”
Heaton planted the flag in the Eastern African region of Bir Tawil on June 16, her birthday.
Heaton says he traveled to the location with the “full support” of the Egyptian government to make a physical claim on the land.
Shelia Carapico, a professor of political science and international studies at the University of Richmond, says Heaton would not have political control over the land without legal recognition from neighboring countries, the United Nations or other groups.
Heaton says he hopes to get Sudan and Egypt to recognize the kingdom.
Agencies/Canadajournal
