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Egypt, EU Cooperate to Face Water Challenges

Egypt’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Dr. Hani Sewilam speaking at a celebration organized in Cairo by the European Union Delegation to Egypt to mark the World Water Day 2023 (Irrigation Ministry)
Egypt’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Dr. Hani Sewilam speaking at a celebration organized in Cairo by the European Union Delegation to Egypt to mark the World Water Day 2023 (Irrigation Ministry)
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Egypt, EU Cooperate to Face Water Challenges

Egypt’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Dr. Hani Sewilam speaking at a celebration organized in Cairo by the European Union Delegation to Egypt to mark the World Water Day 2023 (Irrigation Ministry)
Egypt’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Dr. Hani Sewilam speaking at a celebration organized in Cairo by the European Union Delegation to Egypt to mark the World Water Day 2023 (Irrigation Ministry)

The European Union on Sunday affirmed support for the Egyptian efforts in facing water challenges while the North African country revealed its problems related to the “scarcity” of water resources.

“Egypt is one of the driest countries in the world,” said Egypt’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Dr. Hani Sewilam. He noted that his country depends almost exclusively on the Nile water that comes from outside the borders.

The Minister was speaking at a celebration organized in Cairo by the European Union Delegation to Egypt in collaboration with the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation to mark the World Water Day 2023 under the theme “Accelerating Change” to solve water and sanitation problems.

“Egypt takes serious steps to face water challenges as per capita water share reaches about 500 cubic meters annually while the United Nations put water poverty at 1,000 cubic meters annually,” Sewilam said.

Egypt’s water scarcity is aggravated by its dispute with Ethiopia regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Egypt fears that its share of the waters of the Nile will be affected by the GERD that Ethiopia has been building since 2011 on the main tributary of the river.

Cairo is calling for a binding legal agreement that regulates the filling and operation of the dam, while Ethiopia is pushing for the construction of the hydroelectric dam, claiming its right to development by exploiting its water resources.

Egypt has been engaged in negotiations for more than a decade with Ethiopia and Sudan but no progress was made.

On Sunday, Sewilam said the Egyptian state carried out many mega national projects to improve the quality of water and rationalize its use through the establishment of giant water treatment plants.

For his part, Ambassador Christian Berger, head of the EU Delegation to Egypt spoke about the threats that “endanger our water, from climate change to plastic pollution.”

He said that, unprecedented in the history of humankind, water has become a geopolitical issue, a strategic good, that can trigger migration, hamper food security, and even cause wars.

The Ambassador said that during the next decade, the average portion of Nile water for every person will decrease by 22%, only due to population growth. This might lead to a significant danger to water quality, and hence the overall quality of life, he stressed.

In response to these challenges, Berger said the EU keeps supporting the Egyptian government, especially in the water sector.

“With more than €550 million in grants, leveraging concessional funds of nearly €3 billion thanks to European Financial Institutions, we have been supporting the response to these challenges since 2007,” he said.

Berger added that the EU has co-funded programs that cover 16 Egyptian governorates, providing jobs, mainly in rural areas. “This shall help improve the quality of life for nearly 20 million inhabitants in Egypt,” he affirmed.

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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.