The Nile, which rises in Ethiopia, lies at the heart of a strategic conflict between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. Stretching over 6,700 km, this legendary waterway provides water and sustenance to nearly 500 million people across East Africa. But today, a silent but relentless battle over who controls it is being waged.
For decades Ethiopia – long weakened by civil wars and famine and where half the population lives without electricity – has allowed Egypt and Sudan to appriopriate its water. But in 2022, it inaugurated the Grand Renaissance Dam. This fortress now threatens to dry up its neighbours downstream.
In 2021, the crisis took a new turn. Egyptian fighter jets skimmed the Ethiopian border in a calculated show of force. President General Al Sissi, backed by his people, is concerned that his pharaonic project to cultivate 9,000 km of agricultural land in the middle of the desert is in jeopardy. From the source to the mouth, we met the people for whom the Nile is synonymous with survival.
For the past 10 years, Ethiopia's construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam, the largest dam ever built in Africa, has poisoned relations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, and shaped the geopolitics of the region.
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