While Ethiopia is engaged in bloody internecine fighting in its Tigray region, and Sudan is in the midst of a significant political transition, plans for the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—constructed athwart the Blue Nile, which flows into Sudan and there joins the waters of the White Nile and continues on to Egypt—continue apace. Since work on the dam began in 2011, it has been the subject of tension between Addis Ababa and Cairo, the latter fearing its potential effects on the Nile’s waters in Egypt. Both Egypt and Ethiopia have longstanding friendly relations with Israel, while Sudan only recently signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Alberto M. Fernandez examines the implications for the Middle East:
The [dam] should, in normal rainy years, bring benefits to all three countries in terms of regularizing waterflow, but in years of drought, Egypt would be at the mercy of a foreign power 2,000 miles away. . . . [T]here is no doubt that the distrust and tension are rising.
[Meanwhile], the military dimension of a possible conflict is closer to the surface than ever before. Parts of the Sudan-Ethiopian border now host not only regular Sudanese and Ethiopian armed forces, but irregular forces and ill-disciplined tribal militias. Sudan’s former Janjaweed, [an Arab militia], face [Ethiopian] Amhara militias known for their brutality against local people. With the chance of inadvertent, escalating clashes and public saber-rattling so prominent, a first step must be to ensure that a dangerous, volatile situation does not deteriorate even further into open military conflict before the rains come.
The rising regional conflict places Sudan’s fragile transition toward democracy and national peace at great risk. . . . Sudan is assaulted by remnants of the Omar al-Bashir regime broadcasting daily anti-government Islamist propaganda in Arabic from Istanbul. (The Erdogan government was very supportive of the brutal Bashir regime in its last years). . . . The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel can all play a role in making the situation better or worse and need to be in constant dialogue with international mediators to ensure they play, at least, a non-negative role.
Read more on MEMRI: https://www.memri.org/reports/time-lowering-heat-while-great-ethiopian-renaissance-dam-gerd-waters-rise