Africa-Press-Ethiopia<\/p>\n
Sudan warned Ethiopia Saturday against going ahead with the second phase of filling its mega dam on the Blue Nile, saying it would pose a “direct threat to Sudanese national security”.<\/p>\n
“If Ethiopia goes ahead with filling the renaissance dam next July, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” Sudan’s Water Minister Yasser Abbas told AFP in an interview in the capital Khartoum.<\/p>\n
“It will also threaten the lives of half the population in central Sudan, as well as irrigation water for agricultural projects and power generation from (Sudan’s) Roseires Dam.”<\/p>\n
Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have been locked in inconclusive talks for nearly a decade over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, after Addis Ababa broke ground on the project in 2011.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia, which says it has already reached its first-year target for filling the dam’s reservoir, has recently signalled it would proceed with the filling regardless of whether a deal was struck.<\/p>\n
Khartoum hopes the dam will regulate annual flooding, but fears that its own dams, including the Roseires and Merowe, would be harmed if no agreement is reached.<\/p>\n
“It will be impossible to operate the Roseires Dam without a binding agreement and daily exchange of information on the amount of water flowing from the renaissance dam,” Abbas said.<\/p>\n
Without a deal, the minister added, the “Merowe Dam will also lose 30 percent of the electric energy it generates and drinking water stations will be affected”.<\/p>\n
Sudan has suggested mediation by the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and the United States to help break the impasse.<\/p>\n
The latest three-way talks were held last month in the presence of observers from the African Union and European Union, but failed to make headway.<\/p>\n
Relations between Addis Ababa and Khartoum have been sour in recent weeks following tensions over the Al-Fashaqa border region, where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land claimed by Sudan.<\/p>\n
The Nile, the world’s longest river, is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to the 10 countries it traverses.<\/p>\n
Its main tributaries, the White and Blue Nile, converge in Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt to drain into the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Africa-Press-Ethiopia Sudan warned Ethiopia Saturday against going ahead with the second phase of filling its mega dam on the Blue Nile, saying it would pose a “direct threat to Sudanese national security”. “If Ethiopia goes ahead with filling the renaissance dam next July, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” Sudan’s Water […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":2547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[241,287],"class_list":["post-2545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press-ethiopia","tag-ethiopia-sudan-issues"],"yoast_head":"\n