Egypt angry as it says Ethiopia has resumed filling GERD

Egypt says unilateral move violates international laws as tensions rise over huge dam built on Nile’s main tributary.

Egypt has said it received an official notice from Ethiopia that it had started the next phase of filling a controversial huge dam on the Nile River’s main tributary, raising tensions days before an upcoming meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the issue. In a statement late on Monday, the Egyptian irrigation ministry expressed its “firm rejection of this unilateral measure” and said the move was “a violation of international laws and norms that regulate projects built on the shared basins of international rivers”. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is set to be Africa’s largest hydroelectric project when completed, is the source of an almost decade-long diplomatic standoff between Ethiopia and downstream nations Egypt and Sudan.