Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday that the second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will go ahead as scheduled during the country’s rainy season in July. “We do not wish to harm the water interests of Egypt and Sudan,” he added in a speech to the Ethiopian Parliament on Tuesday. Sudan has warned that Ethiopia’s unilateral filling of GERD will have serious and irreversible consequences that could negatively effect half of its population. Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have held several rounds of negotiations around the dam over the past years, with little results. Egypt, which relies considerably on freshwater from the Nile, has voiced fears that the GERD would negatively impact the country’s water supply, and has insisted that measures be put in place to protect downstream countries in case of drought during the dam’s filling process.

Source: Egypt Independent March 23, 2021 13:07 UTC