Ethiopia bans flights over damShareADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia banned all flights over its giant new hydropower dam on the Blue Nile for security reasons, the head of its civil aviation authority said, as the president pledged the dam would begin generating power in the next 12 months. “All flights have been banned to secure the dam,” the director-general of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority, Wesenyeleh Hunegnaw, told Reuters by phone. In July, Ethiopia said it had achieved its first year of filling the dam thanks to rainfall in the area. Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan failed to strike a deal on the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam before Ethiopia began filling the reservoir behind the dam in July. The United States decided last month to cut $100 million in aid to Ethiopia amid the dispute over the dam.

Source: Ethiopian News October 11, 2020 15:02 UTC