March 22 is World Water Day. Some experts predicted that the wars of the future would be wars over water. In the Horn of Africa, we are not yet talking about armed conflict,
but the tone continues to rise between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. The waters of the Nile are at stake, which is at the center of an intense diplomatic struggle as Ethiopia completes the construction of its renaissance dam, the largest of its future in Africa. And she is determined not to be intimidated by Sudan and Egypt.
Ethiopia will complete the second phase of filling the Renaissance Dam reservoir this summer during the rainy season with or without agreement.
This statement from the Ethiopian Water Minister last week adds a little more fuel to regional tensions with its two neighbors down by the Nile.
In fact, Sudan and Egypt want at all costs to negotiate a common mechanism for controlling the Nile, for fear of seeing its current decline and thus all their agricultural activities. Signs of tensions, Khartoum and Cairo have just signed a treaty on military cooperation.
In terms of negotiations, Ethiopia strongly rejects Sudan’s request to use four mediators; The United States, the European Union, the United Nations and the African Union.
