InsiderBLM Africa
Despite objections from its downstream neighbour Egypt, Ethiopia is getting ready to start the fourth filling of its mega-dam reservoir on the Blue Nile, the nation’s deputy prime minister said on Thursday.
Since Ethiopia began construction on the enormous $4.2 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2011, the project has been at the heart of a regional conflict.
Sudan and Egypt have occasionally requested that Addis Abeba stop filling the reservoir.
“The GERD is currently on the verge of its fourth filling. Lower riparian states have not been impacted by the last three fillings. The remaining fillings won’t be any different either, according to foreign minister and Demeke Mekonnen.
He declared as he opened a symposium on the Nile in Addis Abeba, “The project is near completion, withstanding the rhetoric of some actors that seek to monopolise the use of the shared African river.”
Demeke and his foreign minister colleagues from some Nile Basin countries, including Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will participate in a “high-level ministerial round table” at the summit.
However, the two nations immediately downstream of the Ethiopian dam, Sudan and Egypt, are not featured.
Due to their reliance on Nile freshwater, Khartoum and Cairo have previously characterised it as a threat, while Ethiopia views it as necessary for its electrification and development.
Khartoum’s stance has changed while Egypt, which depends on the Nile for almost 97 percent of its irrigation needs, maintains that the dam poses a “existential” threat.
Abdel Fattah Al-Burhane, the president of Sudan, declared in January that Addis Abeba and Khartoum are “aligned and in agreement” over the dam.
Since mid-April, fatal clashes between Al-Burhane’s allies and those of his adversary and former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have left over two million people homeless and killed over 2,000 people.
