According to the Eritrean government, the Nara are descendants of the first Nilo-Saharan settlers in Eritrea, who had migrated from the Upper Nile area and intermarried with local Pygmy populations.

[4] They are located north of the Kunama, in the western parts of Barka Plains, the Nara constitute about 1.5% of the Eritrean population.

Through contact with neighboring Afroasiatic-speaking populations, many Nara are also bilingual in Tigre and/or Arabic.

This points to substantial gene flow from neighbouring Afro-Asiatic-speaking males into the Nara's ancestral community.

[10] Cruciani et al. (2010) likewise observed that the remaining Nara individuals are primarily carriers of the Afro-Asiatic-associated haplogroup J (20%), as well as the A lineage (20%), which is instead common among Nilotes.