Ethiopia announced on Sunday (September 10th) that it had completed the filling of the Grand Renaissance Dam it built on the Nile, reviving tensions with Egypt, which condemned a "unilateral" and "illegal" operation.

Sudan, another country located downstream of this mega-dam presented as the largest in Africa, had not reacted Sunday night.

In recent years, Khartoum and Cairo, which see the dam as a threat to their water supply, have repeatedly asked Ethiopia to stop filling the reservoir of the Grand Renaissance Dam (Gerd), pending a tripartite agreement on how it operates.

Negotiations between the three countries, interrupted since April 2021, resumed on August 27.

"It is with great pleasure that I announce that the fourth and last (water) filling of the Renaissance Dam has been successfully completed," Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Sunday in a message posted on the social network X (ex-Twitter).

"There have been a lot of challenges, we have often been pushed to back down. We had an internal challenge and external pressures. We have reached (this stage) by facing God," he added.

"I believe we will finish what we have planned," the Ethiopian leader said.

The Prime Minister's Office then posted several photos showing Abiy Ahmed at the dam site with a message in English: "Our national perseverance against all odds has paid off!"

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry denounced this operation.

The "filling of the Renaissance Dam reservoir without agreement with the two downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan) is (...) illegal," and "will weigh" on negotiations between the three countries, he said in a statement.

Existential threat

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

Deemed vital by Addis Ababa, the Gerd, which cost about 3.5 billion euros, has been at the heart of a regional conflict since Ethiopia began construction in 2011.

Long deadlocked, negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan resumed in Cairo on August 27, with the aim of reaching an agreement "taking into account the interests and concerns of the three countries", said the Egyptian Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

A few weeks earlier, in mid-July, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Abiy Ahmed had given themselves four months to reach an agreement on the filling and operation of the dam, during a meeting on the sidelines of a summit of African leaders on the war in Sudan.

Egypt sees the mega-dam as an existential threat, as it depends on the Nile for 97% of its water needs.

Khartoum's position has varied in recent years.

After several months of common front with Egypt in 2022, the Sudanese leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, said last January that he "agreed on all points" with Abiy Ahmed about the Gerd.

But Sudan has been ravaged by a deadly conflict since mid-April.

Ethiopia assures for its part that its megadam, located in the northwest of the country about thirty kilometers from the border with Sudan, will not disrupt the flow of the river.

With AFP

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