al-Shakaba is a community in Al Jazirah

Al Jazirah (state)

Al Jazirah , also spelled Gezira, is one of the 15 states of Sudan. The state lies between the Blue Nile and the White Nile in the east-central region of the country. It has an area of 27,549 km². The name comes from the Arabic word for peninsula. Wad Madani is the capital of the state.It is...

 state, Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

. It lies on the west shore of the Blue Nile

Blue Nile

The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile...

 near Barakat

Barakat, Sudan

Barakat is a community in Al Jazirah state, Sudan. It lies on the west shore of the Blue Nile to the south of Wad Madani.The extra long staple cotton named Sudan Barakat is planted in the irrigated fields of this region....

, to the south of Wad Madani

Wad Madani

Wad Madani is the capital of the Al Jazirah state in east-central Sudan.Wad Madani lies on the west bank of the Blue Nile, nearly 85 miles southeast of Khartoum....

.
The village is within the Gezira scheme, which provides irrigation water for cotton cultivation.

After the Battle of Karari (2 September 1898) in which the Mahdist forces of the Khalifa were defeated by an Anglo-Egyptian army under General Herbert Kitchener, the Mahdi's family were forced to return to their original homes on Aba Island

Aba Island

Aba Island is an island on the White Nile to the south of Khartoum, Sudan. It is the original home of the Mahdi in Sudan and the spiritual base of the Umma Party...

 on the White Nile

White Nile

The White Nile is a river of Africa, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile from Egypt, the other being the Blue Nile. In the strict meaning, "White Nile" refers to the river formed at Lake No at the confluence of the Bahr al Jabal and Bahr el Ghazal rivers...

 in September 1898. They were arrested there and sent east to Shakaba.
After hearing a rumor that the group was conducting Mahdist propaganda, a force of government troops fired on the group at random, killing Khalifa Muhammad Sharif

Muhammad Sharif, Kalifa

Sayyid Muhammad Sharif was one of the three Kalifas or lieutenants of Muhammad Ahmad , who styled himself the Mahdi, the others being Ali wad Hilu and Abdallahi ibn Muhammad....

 and two of the Mahdi's sons, al-Fadil and al-Bushra.
A third son, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi

Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi

Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi was one of the leading religious and political figures during the colonial era in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan , and continued to exert great authority as leader of the Neo-Mahdists after Sudan became independent...

, was badly wounded. After he had recovered he was allowed to settle in Shakaba.
A 1907 account gave a different version of the events. It said "Khalifa Sherif preached Mahdism openly at Wad Madani; but he was captured by Captain N.M. Smyth, V.C., and tried by court-martial and shot". A footnote says he lived at Shakaba, forty miles from Sennar

Sennar

Sennar is a town on the Blue Nile in Sudan and capital of the state of Sennar. For several centuries it was the capital of the Funj Kingdom of Sennar. It had an estimated population of 100,000 inhabitants in the early 19th century. The modern town lies 17km SSE of the ruins of the ancient capital...

, and that the Mahdi's sons Fadil and Bishra were with him, but does not mention their death.