After the Nile’s Sudden Flood… Fingers Point at Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam

Khartoum – Hala Hamza

The sudden flooding of the River Nile has caused major disruption in Sudan, coming just days after the official inauguration of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) and preparations for the new agricultural season.

Experts in irrigation and dam management have held Ethiopia responsible for the damage caused by the floods, calling for verification of its seriousness in meeting the technical requirements for filling, operation, and the safety of Sudanese and other dams.

The Ministry of Irrigation sought to reassure citizens in a statement issued on Tuesday evening, urging against panic and calling for efforts to focus on taking the necessary measures.

Dam and water resources expert Ahmed al-Mufti, speaking to Al-Muhaqiq, demanded accountability and immediate, fair compensation for those affected by the recent flooding linked to the GERD. He said the Sudanese government had promised its people that the dam would not expose them to flooding, yet what happened contradicted this, with Ethiopia releasing water recently at levels around one and a half metres higher than the 1988 flood. He pointed to the Sudanese Ministry of Water Resources’ own acknowledgement of this, and its warnings to citizens who in fact suffered damage from the flooding.

In its statement on the Nile floods, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation noted that seasonal forecasts indicated a change in rainfall patterns, with the rainy season delayed and extending until the end of October, as a result of climate change.

The ministry explained that an early warning had been issued regarding expected heavy rainfall over the Ethiopian plateau, the source of the Blue Nile and Atbara rivers, with volumes significantly exceeding the average. It also highlighted a marked increase in the inflows of the White Nile, which since 2020 has seen unprecedented rises of around 60–100 percent above average. This, it said, reflected the impacts of climate change affecting the region.

The ministry further confirmed that inflows from the Atbara River were also at their highest in recent days, coinciding with the completion of storage and filling of the GERD reservoir. It pointed out that water release from the reservoir began on 10 September 2025, which meant that the flood season inflows merged with dam releases, reaching a maximum discharge of 750 million cubic metres per day. Although discharges during flood season can reach higher values, the timing of this volume had a major impact on water level patterns.

The statement indicated that these increases had caused significant rises in Nile water levels and its tributaries. It stressed that reaching flood level at any station simply meant that waters had reached the edge of the river channel, not necessarily that surrounding areas were fully submerged. It again urged against panic and called for directing efforts towards necessary precautions. It added that daily inflows from the Blue Nile had already begun to decline since yesterday, suggesting that overall levels would start to recede gradually.

Dr al-Mufti urged the Ministry of Irrigation to compel Ethiopia to compensate those affected, and to verify its commitment to promises made to Sudan of providing cheap electricity and enabling three agricultural cycles per year. He argued these promises were what had led Sudan to adopt its supportive stance towards the GERD. He also blamed the negotiation committees for the loss of Sudan’s water rights, and called on the government to immediately implement engineering arrangements to absorb any unwanted water releases from the dam.

Irrigation affairs analyst Ibrahim Shaqlawi described the current flooding as an early test of the importance of resuming talks between Sudan and Ethiopia, reaching an agreement on the GERD, and recalibrating technical relations. He warned in comments to Al-Muhaqiq that ignoring this could turn the dam from a development project into a source of permanent tension.

He emphasised the need to reassess the operational framework of the information-sharing agreement between the two countries, linking it with binding enforcement guarantees and expediting the creation of joint monitoring mechanisms. Shaqlawi also called for strengthening information exchange with genuine political will that balances strategic and political interests with operational transparency, to safeguard Sudan’s water security.

He noted that the GERD’s inauguration has placed the region in a new water equation that goes beyond the technical to more complex political and security dimensions, with Ethiopia controlling more than 80 percent of the Blue Nile’s waters through the dam. This, he warned, grants Ethiopia considerable water leverage over both Sudan and Egypt, placing them in an unprecedented position of dependency and vulnerability.

On 25 September 2025, Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation Early Warning Unit issued a high-risk alert of potential floods along the Nile due to a sudden rise in Blue Nile water levels. The warning covered several Sudanese states, most notably Khartoum, Sennar, Gezira, and White Nile.

Water resources expert Dr Osman Hamad stated internally that GERD discharges had technically exceeded 750 million cubic metres per day, while inflows did not exceed 450 million cubic metres—indicating an intensive drawdown from the reservoir of over 300 million cubic metres daily. He suggested this rapid release might have been aimed at lowering storage levels, especially in the upper two metres of the rockfill dam, areas that may not have been previously wetted. He also suggested Ethiopia had rushed the storage process, which was supposed to be completed by 15 October rather than in early September 2025.

Negotiating team member engineer Diab Hassan accused the GERD of causing the flooding in Sudan. Speaking to Al-Muhaqiq, he said the dam was filled at the wrong time—before the floodwaters receded—in order to stage its political inauguration. He explained that the flooding in September coincided with the dam filling, forcing Ethiopia to release water.

He added that had Ethiopia passed floodwaters at around 450 million cubic metres per day, the impact would have been far less severe. Instead, it released from stored reserves at roughly 300 million cubic metres daily, pushing the flow beyond 700 million cubic metres—negatively affecting Sudan, especially as this occurred in September when farmers were preparing for the season under the assumption that floodwaters would already be subsiding.

Shaqlawi expressed concern over the absence of genuine coordination between Ethiopia and Sudan, stressing that major discharges had been carried out without early notice or real coordination. This, he said, undermined the basis of the information-sharing agreement, which established joint technical and ministerial committees on dam safety and operations. Their last meeting was in early November 2024, when they had agreed to meet quarterly.

He said: “Ethiopia is practising a policy of notification without consultation,” which places Sudan before a fait accompli, depriving it of the ability to take preventive measures to protect its vital infrastructure and the populations living along the Blue Nile and the main Nile.

“This development reflects the fragility of trust between the two sides, despite the existence of a written agreement meant to regulate notification, consultation, and the daily exchange of operational and filling data,” he added, urging verification of Ethiopia’s seriousness in meeting its technical obligations.

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