This archive report was first published on 16 July 2020.
On July 16, 2020, tensions rose between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as Addis Ababa refuted claims it had begun filling the dam.
According to Addis Ababa, the amount of water flowing downstream to Sudan and Egypt had predictably reduced after the dam structure was raised, absorbing more of the incoming water.
Dr Seleshi Bekele, the Ethiopian Water, Irrigation and Energy Minister, stated that his country had not blocked the flow of water as earlier claimed.
“The GERD construction has reached level 560m compared to level 525m last year this time. The inflow into the reservoir due to heavy rainfall and runoff exceeded the outflow and created natural pooling. This continues until overflow is triggered soon,” Dr Seleshi said.
Both Sudan and Egypt have raised concerns that the mega-dam project could see their countries face water shortages since millions of their citizens depend on the Nile for livelihood.
On July 15, 2020, Sudan's Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said the volume in the Nile had gone down by as much as 90 million cubic meters of water per day, attributing it to the closure of the GERD gates.
“Local and international media circulated information and pictures taken by satellites indicating that Ethiopia started filling the Renaissance Dam before reaching an agreement on the first filling and operation," said the ministry, adding that it tasked its agencies specialised in measuring the levels of the Blue Nile to investigate the authenticity of the information.
Officially, Ethiopia maintains it has a sovereign right to fill the dam, even before the three countries agree on technical arrangements of the filling.
The $4.5 billion mega-dam is projected to have a capacity of 6.4GW power when complete. Ethiopia says the project has reached a stage to start the initial storage process estimated at 4.9 billion cubic meters out of its 74 billion cubic meters capacity.
