Ethiopia inaugurates GERD dam amid downstream tensions with Egypt, Sudan

Ethiopia celebrates Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam arsenic Egypt and Sudan explicit fears implicit h2o security.

Ethiopia has inaugurated Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam connected the Blue Nile, arsenic the $5bn task continues to sow dismay with downstream neighbours Sudan and Egypt.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has hailed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) arsenic a “shared opportunity” for the portion that is expected to make much than 5,000 megaWatts of powerfulness and let surplus energy to beryllium exported.

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A fistful of determination leaders, including Kenya’s President William Ruto and Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, attended the festivities successful idiosyncratic connected Tuesday, which kicked disconnected the nighttime earlier with lantern displays and drones penning slogans specified arsenic “geopolitical rise” and “a leap into the future”.

But Sudan and Egypt – who trust heavy connected the Nile for h2o supplies – person expressed fears that the dam volition endanger their h2o information and adjacent breach planetary law. Their leaders did not be the inauguration of the dam.

The Blue Nile, 1 of the Nile’s 2 main tributaries, flows northbound into Sudan and past Egypt. The dam is located conscionable 14km (9 miles) eastbound of the Sudanese border, measuring 1.8km (1.1 miles) wide and 145 metres (0.1 mile) tall.

“I recognize their worries, due to the fact that of course, if you look astatine Egypt from the sky, you spot that the thoroughfare of beingness is existent” acknowledgment to the Nile, Pietro Salini, the CEO of Italian institution Webuild that constructed the dam, told Al Jazeera. But “regulating the h2o from this dam volition make an further benefit” to neighbours, helium added.

(Al Jazeera)

‘Continuous menace to stability’

GERD has spawned determination hostility since it was launched successful 2011, with years of practice talks betwixt Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt inactive stalled.

Last week, Sudan and Egypt released a associated connection calling Ethiopia’s actions “unilateral” and saying the dam posed a “continuous menace to stability”.

Sudan’s Roseires Dam, located astir 110km (70 miles) downstream of GERD, faces imaginable aboriginal effects if Ethiopia were to execute ample h2o releases without coordination, reports Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall.

“Roseires is the closest, it’s 60 years older, and erstwhile constructed was 25 times smaller – and volition apt carnivore the brunt of the fallout if thing goes incorrect astatine the Ethiopian dam,” Vall said.

But GERD whitethorn besides supply benefits specified arsenic regulating the yearly travel of the stream and reducing imaginable flooding successful villages connected the banks of the Nile.

Abdullah Abderrahman, Roseires Dam medication manager, told Al Jazeera that GERD has helped to power overflow astatine Roseires that “used to beryllium highly big”.

“Then determination is the simplification of the immense amounts of silt and trees that the rainy play utilized to bring into Roseires, causing its retention capableness to shrink by a third,” Abderrahman added.

Dessalegn Chanie Dagnew, subordinate prof of h2o resources astatine Bahir Dar University successful Ethiopia and a subordinate of the Ethiopian parliament, told Al Jazeera the dam’s benefits could yet scope beyond assuaging flooding and silt.

Rather than creating tension, helium said, GERD “will besides service arsenic a task that tin truly bring astir determination integration and cooperation”.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies