What is behind the warnings of dangerous floods in Sudan? | policy

Khartoum- Today, Monday, the Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation launched a red warning, the second within 72 hours, for 6 states of dangerous floods along the indigo due to the increase in the incoming of the blue and white Niles, the Sudanese did not accustom to at the end of September.

The early warning unit in the Ministry of Nile Water Affairs at the Ministry directed “a very high risk warning to take the maximum measures of the Blue Nile, Sennar, Al -Jazeera, Khartoum, the Nile and the White Nile.” She pointed out that it includes the period from Monday morning until Wednesday evening, and called for avoiding low places, valleys and roads that can be overwhelmed by water.

Sudan usually witnesses heavy rains that cause liquefies and floods between May and August of each year, which damages infrastructure and crops and displays entire families, while the levels of the Nile River rise and their peak in August until mid -September.

Remarkable timing

It is noteworthy that the flood this year came at the end of this month, which is an unusual timing before completing and opening the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

In an interview with Al -Jazeera Net, the head of the technical staff of the water resources at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Saleh Hamad, in an interview with Al -Jazeera Net, attributed the increase in the levels of the Nile to the increase in revenue from the dam as a result of its full filling during the opening ceremony and the need to reduce the level of the lake after the celebration.

Hamad explained that this means passing all the water received daily for the dam, which witnessed an increase above the general average in this period with clouds from the lake estimated at 150 to 250 million cubic meters per day, at a time when the average daily revenue of the Blue Nile was in such days of these days of 450 to 500 million cubic meters per day, while during the past days it passed 750 million cubic meters per day, and the maximum flood of the Blue Nile reached 950 million cubic meters per day before The construction of the dam.

On September 9, Ethiopia has officially opened the largest electromagnet dam in Africa, a project that would provide millions of Ethiopians with electric power.

The head of the technical staff of the water resources at the Ministry of Agriculture said that the Blue Nile revenues that stem from the Ethiopian plateau began to decline from yesterday evening, and that the danger that was threatening a number of states is completely removed after the completion of the drainage of water that was booked to open the Renaissance Dam in an organized manner, and continued, “There is complete coordination with the Ethiopian side and there is a joint committee in which information is exchanged throughout the day.”

Hamad asserts that “the situation is completely under control”, and all the levels of the Nile in Sudan stations began to decline, especially the Rosan Tazzan area (100 km from the Renaissance Dam) and will continue to decline in the stations along the Blue Nile and the main Nile successively.

The responsibility of Ethiopia

The international expert and legal advisor to the former Ministry of Irrigation, Ahmed Al -Mufti, believes that the “allegations” that the Renaissance Dam protects Sudan from the floods that occurred completely, as the water coming from the dam in 1988 exceeded more than one and a half meters in height “, and that the warnings of the floods that the ministry launched to the citizens” should have attached an apology with them, while asking the Ethiopian side to compensate the affected. “

The Mufti told Al -Jazeera Net that “coordination, or its lack with Addis Ababa, do not actually change anything, that there is an arbitration of Ethiopia,” and asked about the electricity that Ethiopia waved to Sudan, and about the three agricultural cycles that the dam should have provided to the country.

However, former Sudanese Minister of Irrigation Yasser Abbas said in previous statements that the benefits of the Renaissance Dam to Sudan are greater than its harm if coordination between the two parties is made, so that there is a safe operation of the Al -Roseris Tank, and this is done by exchanging information between the two technical aspects, and added, “The dam for us is like a high dam for Egypt.”

As for the Mufti expert, he demanded the opening of an urgent investigation on the floods that struck several areas in Sudan, and about what he considered “Sudan’s waste of its water rights despite expert warnings since the start of negotiations on the dam in 2011”.

He called on the Sudanese authorities to demand a joint administration of the dam, and “if this is rejected, Khartoum demands the land on which it is being established because it is a Sudanese granted to Ethiopia in 1902, provided that a water facility is not established except with the approval of the government of Sudan.”

Flood effects

Activists on social media broadcast pictures and videos of the effects of flooding, and the Nile waters were flooded for areas in the capital, Khartoum, the states of Al -Jazeera (central), Sennar (south), and the Nile River, northern Sudan, today, Monday.

They called on the youth to come to the banks of the Nile, and the youth of the Shakilab region (south of Khartoum) called all the residents of the neighborhood to contribute to raising the protective territorial dam of the region after the levels of the levels to record levels and by providing logistical support to protect the region from the flood.

The youth of Al -Kalakala Al -Qubba, south of Khartoum, also launched the same call, and others broadcast videos of the Nile water that flooded the white and blue Muqrin area in the center of Khartoum.

In the state of the island, the water was flooded with many agricultural lands and prompted farmers to withdraw the units of “solar energy and irrigation pumps” after the levels of levels.