All flights over Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile have been banned for security reasons, the head of the country’s civil aviation authority.
Wesenyeleh Hunegnaw, the director-general of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority, told Reuters on Monday about the new action without elaborating on reasons behind the ban.
“All flights have been banned to secure the dam,” he said.
Last week, local media reported Ethiopian Air Force Commander Yilma Merdasa saying that the country was fully prepared to defend the dam from any attack.
Ethiopia is engaged in a dispute with Egypt and Sudan over the new hydropower dam, whose construction began in 2011.
Ethiopia says the dam offers a critical opportunity to pull millions of its nearly 110 million citizens out of poverty and become a major power exporter. Downstream Egypt, which depends on the Nile to supply its farmers and population with fresh water, maintains that the dam poses an existential threat, a sentiment shared by Sudan.
Several negotiations with an array of mediators, including the African Union and Trump administration, have failed to produce an amicable solution.
