How the Sudan crisis complicates the Egypt-Ethiopia dispute over the GERD dam

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The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in early 2022 remains a source of friction among neighboring countries. (AFP)
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Updated 28 April 2023
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How the Sudan crisis complicates the Egypt-Ethiopia dispute over the GERD dam

  • A peaceful resolution of the row over Ethiopia’s dam may hinge on who emerges victorious in Sudan’s power struggle
  • Experts say a prolonged conflict could throw both Sudan and Egypt’s water and food security into uncertainty

LONDON: In the past two weeks the world has become used to seeing photographs of Sudan’s Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, whose forces have been locked in combat with the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 15, dressed in battle fatigues.

On January 26, however, the country’s de-facto ruler was wearing a dark suit, blue tie, and a broad smile, in full-on red-carpet diplomat mode as he greeted Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on the runway at Khartoum airport.

It was Abiy’s first visit to Ethiopia’s northern neighbor since the 2021 coup, led by Al-Burhan, that saw the derailing of the transition to civilian rule promised in the wake of the overthrow of the 30-year regime of dictator President Omar Al-Bashir in 2019.

The two men had much to talk about, but top of the agenda for Abiy was winning Sudan’s support for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the vast $4 billion hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, just kilometres from Sudan’s border, that has proved controversial in the region ever since work began on it more than a decade ago.

The GERD is now 90 percent complete, and the coming rainy season will see an estimated 17 billion cubic meters of water retained in the fourth filling of the massive reservoir created by the dam.




Workers are seen walking at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam  in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 19, 2022. (AFP file)

For millions of Ethiopians, half of whom have no electricity and still rely on burning wood for heat, cooking, and light, the dam is a symbol of hope, pride, and a brighter future. At a ceremony on the imposing dam in February last year, Abiy ceremoniously activated the first of its turbines, which began generating power.

When it reaches full capacity and all 13 turbines are feeding into the national power grid, the dam will boost Ethiopia’s industrialization, revolutionize the living standards of millions of its citizens, and earn the country badly needed income as an exporter of power to the region.




Ethiopia's massive hydro-electric dam project began producing electricity last year after more than a decade since construction work first started. (AFP)

Speaking at the 2022 ceremony, Abiy said: “From now on, there will be nothing that will stop Ethiopia. (The dam) will not disrupt the River Nile’s natural flow.” He noted that the start of electricity generation demonstrated “Ethiopia’s friendly attitude toward the river.”

The project was, he added, “excellent news for our continent and the downstream countries with whom we hope to collaborate.”




Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks during the first power generation ceremony at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in early 2022. (AFP)

Ethiopia has always insisted that, as the dam was designed only to generate electricity, neither Egypt nor Sudan, although both downstream, will lose any of the precious water supplied by the Nile.

But when the plan was first unveiled, it was condemned by both Cairo and Khartoum as an existential threat — both nations are utterly dependent upon the life-giving waters of the Nile, which have flowed down from the Ethiopian Highlands since time immemorial.




 A man rides a boat on the waters of the White Nile river in Sudan's Jabal al-Awliyaa area on March 11, 2023. (AFP)

More than once over the past decade Egyptian concern over the scheme has threatened to escalate into violence.

In June 2013, several Egyptian politicians were overheard live on television discussing military options to halt the dam, with proposals ranging from backing Ethiopian rebels to sending in special forces to destroy it.

In March 2021, during a visit to Khartoum four days after signing a military cooperation agreement with Sudan, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said: “We reject the policy of imposing a fait accompli and extending control over the Blue Nile through unilateral measures without taking the interests of Sudan and Egypt into account.”

A few days later he upped the stakes, declaring that “the waters of Egypt are untouchable, and touching them is a red line.”

No one, he added, “can take a single drop of water from Egypt, and whoever wants to try it, let him try.”




Egypt relies on the Nile for its very survival. (AFP)

As recently as March this year, Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, warned that on the issue of the dam “all options are open, all alternatives remain available.”

Since then, however, Sudan’s attitude toward the dam has appeared to ease, leaving Egypt increasingly isolated in its outspoken opposition to the project.

In Sudan in January, in addition to meeting Al-Burhan, Abiy also sat down for talks with Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, with whom the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council is now locked in a bloody power struggle.




Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (R) walks alongside Sudanese Army Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan at Khartoum Airport during a welcome ceremony on January 26, 2023. (AFP)

A statement issued by the council after the meeting welcomed the fact that Abiy had “confirmed that the Renaissance Dam will not cause any harm to Sudan but will have benefits for it in terms of electricity.” The two countries, it added, were “aligned and in agreement on all issues regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.”

But even as he worked to allay Sudanese fears over the dam, Abiy was walking a diplomatic tightrope between Al-Burhan and Dagalo.




Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, right, and paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo after the signing of a 2022 truce. (AFP)

In December, a framework agreement outlining a two-year transition to democracy was signed between the two generals and some Sudanese pro-democracy groups. On his visit to Khartoum in January, Abiy had supported the agreement, tweeting that he was “pleased to come back again and be amidst the wise and vibrant people of Sudan,” and adding that “Ethiopia continues to stand in solidarity with Sudan in their current self-led political process.”

But a prescient commentary in February by the head of a Khartoum think tank highlighted the tensions between the two generals.




A prolonged conflict in Sudan has the potential of posing a risk on the country's ties with Ethiopia. (AFP)

Kholood Khair, the founder and director of Confluence Advisory, told Africa Report: “When Abiy Ahmed visited Khartoum, he lent his support to the framework agreement, which favors Hemedti.

“By doing so, he is trying to get both generals on board ... they have diverging foreign policies, they have diverging income streams, they have diverging political constituencies domestically that they play to.

“Because you have that inherent divergence between the two generals, you get different and unpredictable sorts of power plays.”

Those power plays have now exploded into a conflict which Jordan-based Jemima Oakey, associate in Middle East and North Africa water and food security at London-based consultancy Azure Strategy, said has serious implications for the future management of the dam.




Jemima Oakey. (Supplied)

“Informal discussions were looking pretty positive,” she told Arab News. “From recent reports, Sudan certainly seemed to be coming to an arrangement with Ethiopia, while Egypt had begun to accept its new water reality and had begun developing adaptation measures through increasing the number of desalination plants and rehabilitating its irrigation networks.”

Now, she said, all-important regional cooperation on the management of the dam, for the benefit of Sudan and Egypt, as well as Ethiopia, may hinge on who emerges victorious from the current struggle.

In addition to generating electricity that could be supplied not only to the 60 percent of Ethiopians who currently have no access to mains power, but also to Sudan and Egypt, the dam promises to maximize agricultural yields, in Sudan especially, by ending the destructive cycle of floods and droughts caused by the seasonal variations in the flow of the Nile.




Proponents of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam argue that it could stop the destructive cycle of floods and droughts caused by the seasonal variations in the flow of the Nile in both Egypt and Sudan. (AFP)

But the only way this is going to work, Oakey noted, was “through a data-sharing agreement where water availability and water releases from the dam are clearly laid out and fairly divided between the Nile’s riparians, both through droughts and periods of high rainfall.

“(Right now) we have no idea of what the position of Hemedti on territorial disputes in the Al-Fashaga region in northern Ethiopia might be, if he might try to claim that region for Sudan, or whether he would lend support to rebel militias in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“Any of that could derail any agreements or understandings over access to the dam’s water flows, and really damage Sudan’s access to both water and electricity,” she added.




Ethiopian refugees gather to celebrate the 46th anniversary of the Tigray People's Liberation Front at Um Raquba refugee camp in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, on February 19, 2021. (AFP)

And she pointed out that such a development could also have serious consequences for Egypt.

“Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Egypt has been trying to expand its agriculture sector in order to become more self-sufficient in wheat production and make up for lost Ukrainian wheat imports, so they really need that water, and they need a reliable supply of it,” Oakey said.

“That’s why an agreement for water access and monitoring availability is so crucial.

“But if there’s a prolonged conflict in Sudan, that could really throw both Sudan’s and Egypt’s water and food security into massive uncertainty.”

One scenario, according to Oakey, was as unlikely as it was unthinkable, whatever happens in Sudan’s internal conflict: military action being taken by either side against the dam.

“Over the past few years there has been alarmist speculation in the media that GERD could be attacked in order to prevent its completion, but I seriously doubt that either side in the Sudan conflict would ever consider using this to secure a military advantage,” she said.

“There are now almost 73 billion cubic meters of water behind the dam. To destroy it and unleash that volume of water would inundate most of southern Sudan with catastrophic flooding, so no, no one is going to try that.”




A satellite image obtained courtesy of Maxar Technologies on July 21, 2020 shows the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the Blue Nile River. (AFP)

But some experts hope that nature gets the same memo.

The possibility of a catastrophic failure of the dam has been raised in several academic papers over the past few years. These have highlighted “the high risk of soil instability” around the GERD site which, as one recent study by Egyptian civil and water engineers pointed out, was “located on one of the major tectonic plates and faults in the world.”

Around that fault, they added, about 16 earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.5 or higher had occurred in Ethiopia during the 20th century.

The first and largest of the sequence of devastating quakes that struck Turkiye and Syria in February, killing tens of thousands of people and causing widespread damage, had a magnitude of 7.8.

Hesham El-Askary, professor of remote sensing and Earth systems science at Chapman University in California, told Arab News that seismic risks, rather than the current conflict in Sudan, were the real threat to the dam that the world should be focused on.




A general view of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam near Guba in Ethiopia. (AFP)

“What really bothers me now is the possibility of tectonic moves in Ethiopia, which is the most tectonically active nation in Africa,” he said.

There was, he added, also evidence that dams could “exacerbate tectonic activities and slippage.

“We saw what happened in Turkiye, when dams were opened to ease water pressure on the crust.

“With the changing climate, what Ethiopia is doing is really serious and, with the situation in Sudan, no one can guess how this will all end up.”

 

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Immigrant rights advocates claim US violated court order by deporting migrants to South Sudan

Updated 56 min 37 sec ago
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Immigrant rights advocates claim US violated court order by deporting migrants to South Sudan

  • The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston

BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates accused the Trump administration on Tuesday of deporting around a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order and asked a judge to order their return.

The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.


Maritime security under threat from ‘emerging dangers,’ UN chief warns

Updated 20 May 2025
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Maritime security under threat from ‘emerging dangers,’ UN chief warns

  • Houthi Red Sea campaign ‘increased tensions in an already volatile region’
  • Antonio Guterres calls for three-point plan to address challenges

NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of rising threats to global maritime transport at a high-level Security Council meeting on Tuesday.

It follows almost two years of turmoil in the Red Sea, a vital shipping lane connecting global trade via the Suez Canal.

Yemen’s Houthi militia launched a campaign in late 2023 to prevent Israel-linked shipping from transiting the Red Sea, claiming to act in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The US responded with Operation Prosperity Guardian, a military campaign to target Houthi launch sites and infrastructure.

The EU contributed with EUNAVFOR Aspides, while Israel later responded to Houthi attacks with extensive strikes on Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and the Houthi-controlled port city of Hodeidah.

Tuesday’s Security Council meeting was chaired by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister.

Guterres told the meeting: “Without maritime security, there can be no global security.

“From time immemorial, maritime routes have bound the world together. They have long been the primary means for the trade and transport of not only people, goods and commodities, but also cultures and ideas.”

However, maritime spaces are “increasingly under strain” from traditional threats and “emerging dangers,” Guterres added.

He highlighted contested boundaries, the depletion of natural resources, conflict and crime as key issues affecting maritime security.

The first quarter of 2025 saw a “sharp upward reversal” in reported piracy and armed robbery at sea, Guterres said.

He highlighted the Houthi Red Sea campaign, warning it had “disrupted global trade and increased tensions in an already volatile region.”

Earlier this month, the US reached a ceasefire deal with the Houthis following mediation by Oman.

However, the militia and Israel continue to trade strikes.

Guterres called for three measures to improve global maritime security: Respect for international law; efforts to address the root causes of maritime insecurity; and partnerships involving “everyone with a stake in maritime spaces.”

The international legal framework for maritime security “is only as strong as states’ commitment” to its implementation, he said.

Globally, more must be done “to reduce the likelihood that desperate people will turn to crime and other activities that threaten maritime security,” he added.

Guterres said: “We must involve everyone with a stake in maritime spaces. From coastal communities to governments and regional groups. To shipping companies, flag registries, the fishing and extraction industries, insurers and port operators.

“Let’s take action to support and secure maritime spaces, and the communities and people counting on them.”


Indonesian gig drivers protest demanding lower app fees

Updated 20 May 2025
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Indonesian gig drivers protest demanding lower app fees

  • Motorbike and scooter drivers who form the backbone of Indonesia’s sprawling gig economy earn up to 150,000 rupiah ($10) a day

JAKARTA: Thousands of drivers from ride-hailing and food delivery apps protested in Indonesia on Tuesday, demanding a 10-percent cap on commission fees.

Hundreds of drivers gathered in the streets of the capital Jakarta, driving their motorbikes and waving flags.

Thousands more in Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya drove to the offices of ride-hailing apps GoJek and Grab, before rallying in front of the governor’s office, an AFP journalist saw.

“Many of our friends got into accidents on the road, died on the road because they have to chase their income,” Raden Igun Wicaksono, chairman of the driver’s union Garda Indonesia, told AFP.

“It’s about lives, not about business calculation.”

Drivers are also demanding the end of discounted fare programs and calling on lawmakers to meet with the drivers’ association and app companies.

Motorbike and scooter drivers who form the backbone of Indonesia’s sprawling gig economy earn up to 150,000 rupiah ($10) a day, but costs including app commissions and fuel eat into their income.

Gojek — which alongside Singapore’s Grab is among Asia’s most valuable startups — said it was committed to “supporting the long-term welfare of our driver partners.” 

But lowering its 20-percent commission fee, which complied with regulations, was “not a viable solution,” according to Ade Mulya, head of public policy for Gojek’s parent company GoTo.


Pentagon chief orders review of US withdrawal from Afghanistan

Updated 20 May 2025
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Pentagon chief orders review of US withdrawal from Afghanistan

  • A special review panel will “thoroughly examine previous investigations,” Hegseth said in a memo
  • “This team will ensure ACCOUNTABILITY to the American people”

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday ordered a Pentagon review of the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has long been a target of Republican criticism.

“I have concluded that we need to conduct a comprehensive review to ensure that accountability for this event is met and that the complete picture is provided to the American people,” Hegseth wrote in a memo.

A special review panel will “thoroughly examine previous investigations, to include but not limited to, findings of fact, sources, witnesses, and analyze the decision making that led to one of America’s darkest and deadliest international moments,” the memo said.

“This team will ensure ACCOUNTABILITY to the American people and the warfighters of our great Nation,” it added.

The US withdrawal saw Taliban fighters sweep aside Afghan forces, forcing the last American troops to mount an evacuation from Kabul’s airport that got more than 120,000 people out of the country in a matter of days.

On August 26, 2021, a suicide bomber targeted crowds of people on the perimeter of Kabul airport who were desperate to get on a flight out of the country, killing more than 170 people, among them 13 American troops.

Joe Biden, who was US president during the withdrawal, defended the decision to leave Afghanistan, which critics have said helped cause the catastrophic collapse of Afghan forces.

That paved the way for the Taliban to return to power two decades after their first government was toppled by American forces in the wake of the September 11 attacks.


Muslim Brotherhood ‘threat to national cohesion’: French report

Updated 20 May 2025
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Muslim Brotherhood ‘threat to national cohesion’: French report

  • The report pointed to the spread of Islamism “from the bottom up” and at the municipal level
  • It highlighted the “subversive nature of the project,” saying it aims “to gradually bring about changes to local or national rules“

PARIS: The Muslim Brotherhood movement is a “threat to national cohesion” in France and action must be taken to stop the spread of “political Islamism,” according to a report to be presented to President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.

“The reality of this threat, even if it is long-term and does not involve violent action, poses a risk of damage to the fabric of society and republican institutions... and, more broadly, to national cohesion,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP on Tuesday.

The report, prepared by two senior civil servants, is to be examined by the Defense Council on Wednesday.

France and Germany have the biggest Muslim populations among European Union countries.

The report pointed to the spread of Islamism “from the bottom up” and at the municipal level, adding the phenomenon constituted “a threat in the short to medium term.”

In France, the movement is “based on a solid structure, but political Islamism is spreading primarily at the local level,” the authors stressed.

“Resolute and long-term action on the ground seems necessary to stem the rise of political Islamism,” they said.

The report highlighted the “subversive nature of the project,” saying it aims “to gradually bring about changes to local or national rules,” particularly those concerning secularism and gender equality.

Such “municipal Islamism” risks affecting the public sphere and local politics, the report said, pointing to “the creation of increasingly numerous Islamist ecosystems.”

France’s tough-talking Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau expressed concern on Tuesday about “a low-level Islamism” whose “ultimate goal is to turn the entire French society to Sharia law.”

But the report authors said that “no recent document demonstrates the desire of Muslims in France to establish an Islamic state in France or to enforce Sharia law there.”

Muslims in France (Musulmans de France), formerly the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, is identified as “the national branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in France.”

“We are not dealing with aggressive separatism” but a “subtle (...) yet no less subversive aim for the institutions,” the authors said.

The report estimates that there are 139 places of worship affiliated with Muslims of France, with an additional 68 considered close to the federation.

This represents seven percent of the 2,800 Muslim places of worship listed in France, the report said.

The Islamist movement is losing its influence in the Arab world and “focusing its efforts on Europe,” it added.

A public awareness campaign must be combined with renewed efforts to promote a “secular discourse” as well as “strong and positive signals to the Muslim community” including the teaching of Arabic, the report said.