Ethiopia completes second filling of $4bn Dam

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

Ethiopia has completed the filling of a massive dam on the Blue Nile river for a second year.

The government said the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a $4bn hydropower project, is crucial to its economic development and to provide power.

But the project has caused concern over water shortages and safety in Egypt and Sudan, which also depend on the Nile’s waters.

Both countries have called for a binding legal arrangement before dam operations begin, but attempts at mediation have failed, raising concerns that tensions could rise following the most recent announcement.

“The second filling of the Renaissance dam has been completed and the water is overflowing,” Seleshi Bekele, Ethiopia’s minister for water, irrigation and energy said on Monday.

“It means we have now the needed volume of the water to run the two turbines,” he said on Twitter.

Egypt views the project as a grave threat to its Nile water supplies, on which it is almost entirely dependent, Aljazeera reports.

Sudan has also expressed concern about the dam’s safety and the effect on its own dams and water stations.