Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok despatched letters to the United Nations, African Union, European Union and the USA, international ministry says.
Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has written to the United Nations, African Union (AU), European Union and the USA to formally request their mediation in a bitter regional dispute over the filling of a large dam constructed by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile River.
An announcement launched by the Sudanese international ministry on Monday mentioned Hamdok had expressed concern over Ethiopia’s said intention of including extra water to the reservoir behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) for a second 12 months in letters despatched on Saturday.
Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt have been locked for nearly 10 years in inconclusive talks over the filling and operation of the hydropower dam, which broke floor in 2011. Each Egypt and Sudan lie downstream from the GERD, which Addis Ababa says is essential to its financial improvement.
The Sudanese transfer got here after Hamdok returned from Cairo on Friday and a few 10 days after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s personal go to to Khartoum.
Throughout Hamdok’s go to, the Egyptian authorities formally “renewed its assist for the Sudanese proposal to cease direct talks and set up worldwide mediation”, headed by the AU, the Sudan Tribune reported.
Ethiopia had lately indicated its opposition to including mediators to the prevailing, AU-led course of after the floating of the thought by Sudan, however has but to touch upon Hamdok’s formal name for exterior mediation.
Ethiopia began filling the reservoir behind the dam final 12 months after Egypt and Sudan didn’t safe a legally binding settlement over the GERD’s operation.
Ethiopian officers hope the dam, now greater than three-quarters full, will attain full power-generating capability in 2023, serving to pull thousands and thousands of its individuals out of poverty.
However Sudan fears the undertaking may enhance the chance of flooding and have an effect on the protected operation of its Nile River dams. Its authorities says at the very least 20 million individuals, greater than half the nation’s inhabitants, might be affected if Ethiopia fills and operates the dam with out coordinating with it.
In the meantime, Egypt has referred to as the dam an existential risk and worries that it will cut back its share of Nile waters. The water-scarce nation, dwelling to greater than 100 million individuals, depends nearly fully on the Nile to produce water for agriculture and its individuals.
The decision for worldwide mediation improvement comes amid rising tensions between Addis Ababa and Khartoum following skirmishes on the Al-Fashaqa border area, the place Ethiopian farmers domesticate fertile land claimed by Sudan.