The end of the filling of the mega-dam on the Nile reignites tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt

Ethiopia announced on Sunday, September 11, to have completed the filling of the great Renaissance dam, which it built on the Nile, rekindling tensions with Egypt, which condemned an operation “unilateral” And “illegal”. Sudan, another country located downstream of this mega-dam presented as the largest in Africa, did not react on Sunday evening.

In recent years, Khartoum and Cairo have repeatedly asked Ethiopia to stop filling the reservoir of the Grand Renaissance Dam, pending a tripartite agreement on its operating methods. Negotiations between the three countries, interrupted since April 2021, resumed on August 27.

Egypt considers this mega-dam an existential threat

“There were a lot of challenges, we were often pushed to backtrack. We had an internal challenge and external pressures. We achieved [ce stade] by facing God”greeted the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed.

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced this operation. THE “filling of the Renaissance Dam reservoir without agreement with the two downstream countries [Egypte et Soudan] is (…) illegal” And “will weigh” on the negotiations between the three countries, he explained in a press release. Egypt considers this mega-dam an existential threat, as the country depends on the Nile for 97% of its water needs.

With this hydroelectric mega-dam (1.8 km long, 145 meters high) capable of eventually generating more than 5,000 megawatts, Ethiopia aims to double its electricity production, at which only about half of its 120 million people currently have access.