Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam is making waves in Egypt
“When the Merowe Dam in Sudan was built my family lost everything, their crops, their farming land, their houses, schools, clinics. All that went under the water. The government offered them nothing and they had to rebuild everything from scratch”
Ali Askouri, author
Cover design by MEMO
When the Merowe Dam in Sudan was built Ali Askouri, his family and their community were flooded out of their homes 80 kilometres from where it was being constructed to make way for the project; part of his family were pressured to move to resettlement housing and part of them stayed in the area. That was in 2008. To this day, the government have not compensated these families.
“They lost everything, their crops, their farming land, their houses, schools, clinics,” says Askouri, “all that went under the water. The government offered them nothing and they had to rebuild everything from scratch.”
The dam was built with the promise to double electricity output for Sudan. But Askouri - whose book Hamadab Dam: The Model of Political Islam for Impoverishment and Resources Looting will soon be published - told MEMO that the electricity was actually taken directly to Khartoum and other large cities to be sold at commercial rates, whilst the people in rural areas along the water were side lined. “The only areas that were denied this [electricity] were the affected areas,” says Askouri.
Now, across the southern border of Sudan, a new dam is being constructed. Since 2011 Ethiopia has been working on a $4 billion hydroelectric project that could increase electricity to 50 per cent of what is required for the country and generate €2 million a day. But like the Merowe Dam in Sudan, Askouri says it is likely communities living nearby will be forgotten.
“I think the story could be the same. I think the mentality in these countries is exactly the same. Ethiopia has said they are building this dam to export electricity, which effectively means that electricity will not be provided to rural communities,” he says. Up Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam is making waves in Egypt Amelia Smith middleeastmonitor.com 5 to 20,000 Ethiopians could be displaced by the project.
But whilst these communities, and their fate, rarely make it into news reports, a more well-known issue is the age-old dispute that has played out between Egypt and Ethiopia, the bookends of the Nile, and how they will divide up the water.
The river starts in the upstream country of Ethiopia before eventually reaching Egypt, which is downstream. Hypothetically speaking Ethiopia has the power to “turn off the tap” leaving Egypt without water. Add Sudan to the mix - President Bashir Omar recently declared his support for the project - and the dam could shake up relations between the three strongest Nile states.