CAIRO — Every day now, seasonal rain pounds the lush highlands of northern Ethiopia, sending cascades of water into the Blue Nile, the twisting tributary of perhaps Africa’s most fabled river. Farther downstream, the water inches up the concrete wall of a towering, $4.5 billion hydroelectric dam across the Nile, the largest in Africa, now moving closer to completion. A moment that Ethiopians have anticipated eagerly for a decade — and which Egyptians have come to dread — has finally arrived. Satellite images released this week showed water pouring into the reservoir behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — which will be nearly twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Seleshi Bekele, the Ethiopian water minister, rushed to assuage Egyptian anxieties by insisting that the engorging reservoir was the product of natural, entirely predictable seasonal flooding.

Source: International New York Times July 18, 2020 14:02 UTC