Kinshasa, April 5th, 2021 (CPA).– The Egyptian and Sudanese foreign ministers respectively Sameh Choukry and Ms. Mariam Al Mansoura have been staying in Kinshasa since Saturday, for an official mission in the DRC. The head of Egyptian diplomacy is at the head of a large delegation which also includes the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Mohamed Abdelaty. The Egyptian delegation was preceded on Friday by that of a group of Egyptian experts in the field of water and irrigation, While Ms.
Mansoura is, for her part, accompanied by the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation and Fisheries Resources, Yasin Abbas Mohamed. Their mission is part of the settlement of the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the subject of the Great Renaissance Dam (GERD). Indeed, the head of Egyptian diplomacy carried out in March 2020 an official mission to the DRC during which he requested the involvement of the Head of State Félix Antoine Tshisekedi, current President of the African Union (AU) that he had received in audience, in the settlement of this case.
The dispute between the two countries concerns the modalities concerning the duration of the filling of the reservoir of this Great dam. Cairo fears that the filling of this large reservoir, at the rate of è (billion cubic meters of water from the Nile, will lead to a significant reduction in the flow of the river on Egyptian soil, while the Nile provides 97% of the needs. in the country’s water supply, and that on the banks of the Nile, 95% of the approximately 105 million inhabitants of Egypt live today.
The GERD is a dam under construction since 2012 in Ethiopia on the Blue Nile with an installed capacity of 6,000 MW. It should be delivered in 2022.