🌊 Egypt and Ethiopia have been trading claims, accusations, and clashes over the Nile River for years, and just last week the dispute turned into a diplomatic row that has since dominated the social and political conversations in Egypt. The latest in the saga was when both countries exchanged persona non grata (PNG) declarations on 1 October.

Ethiopia made the first move. Its Foreign Ministry declared Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Moharam Ahmed Soliman PNG, giving him 48 hours to leave the country. The ministry then stated that the decision was made under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations but didn’t disclose exact reasons or identify specific violations by the Egyptian diplomat. Cairo responded the same day, giving Ethiopian embassy counselor Egazi Emelo Borougi the same deadline under the principle of reciprocity.

The expulsions followed an accusation from Ethiopia’s army chief. Field Marshal Birhanu Jula said the forces currently fighting his troops would not succeed unless they were “backed, supported, and supplied by Sudan, Egypt, and other external powers.” A day later, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nader Zaki stated that any claims casting doubt on Egypt’s policy of non-interference were “null and void.” Addis Ababa also expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Asmara on the same day as its escalation against Egypt, prompting Eritrea to cut diplomatic ties in response.

A little background

The disputes between Egypt and Ethiopia center around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) on the Nile — the river which Egypt relies on for over 95% of its freshwater, according to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. Ethiopia broke ground on the Gerd in 2011, which President Abdel Fattah El Sisi says was only built because of the unrest Egypt went through from 2011 to 2013, although the country still maintains a commitment to diplomacy with Ethiopia over the dam today.

Egypt’s share of the river, however, dates back to the colonial era. A 1929 treaty between the UK and Egypt gave Cairo veto power over construction on the Nile, and a 1959 agreement with Sudan raised Egypt’s share of the flow to 66%. Ethiopia and other upstream countries later argued they could not be bound by agreements that excluded them. In 2024, Burundi, Ethiopia, and four other African nations signed the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement, bringing it into force — a treaty that Egypt and Sudan rejected. Years of talks between the three countries then failed to produce a binding agreement, and Ethiopia inaugurated the dam on 9 September 2025.

The losses and gains

For Ethiopia, the dam is about electricity. Addis Ababa sees the Gerd as a source of power the country badly needs, as it’s designed to generate 5.15k megawatts, more than double the country’s previous capacity. Ethiopia also holds the source of the Nile, whose main reservoir is Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands, which provides more than 80% of the river’s water.

As for Egypt, one of the risks is to its farmland, as the Nile Delta is Egypt’s food basket. A 2020 Al Jazeera analysis with earth and space scientist Essam Heggy modeled five scenarios — which were then under negotiation between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia — and, depending on the scenario, Egypt stood to lose anywhere from nearly 2 mn acres, about 18% of its agricultural land, to 6.75 mn acres, about 67%. In one middle scenario, half of the country’s farmland would simply go out of production.

Additionally, Egypt is already below the threshold for absolute water scarcity. Per capita water availability has fallen to about 472 cbm per year, below the 500-cbm line commonly used to define absolute scarcity, according to a statement by Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Hani Sewilam from September, where he also stated that Egypt’s annual renewable supply of about 56.8 bn cbm falls far short of the roughly 123 bn cbm it needs.

To cover part of the gap, Egypt reuses about 23.2 bn cbm of water a year and is expanding treatment plants with a combined capacity of 4.8 bn cbm, as well as government efforts to improve water efficiency, including satellite monitoring, predictive modeling, and smart irrigation systems under its broader “Water 2.0” strategy.

Egypt responds to the Ethiopian plan

Ethiopia wants to build three more hydropower dams: Karadobi, Mandaya, and Beko Abo. Their Water and Energy Minister Habtamu Itefa confirmed the plans in August, and stated that Ethiopia plans to increase its control over the Nile’s flow to Egypt and Sudan. Cairo University water resources professor Abbas Sharaky then described Ethiopia’s unilateral approach to the Renaissance Dam as a threat to downstream countries, saying its operation without consideration for their interests poses a national security concern for Egypt and risks regional stability.

Cairo has ruled out these plans. At a meeting chaired by President El Sisi on 29 September, Foreign Minister and International Cooperation Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt would not accept any new dams or a repeat of “what happened with the current Ethiopian dam.” Egypt had also reiterated that water security is an existential issue at the UN General Assembly that same week, saying it reserves its rights under international law to protect its water security from further threats, which was then backed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a recent visit to Cairo.

The conversation in New Alamein

Egypt’s president hosted the Eritrean president, the Somali president, and the commander-in-chief of the Sudanese army in New Alamein on Sunday for a summit framed as a call for dialogue. In a joint declaration, the four called for respect for international law on transboundary rivers, including the Nile, and opposed any one-sided action that could compromise Egypt and Sudan’s water supply, according to a statement from the presidency. The four nations also agreed that governance of the Red Sea belongs to its coastal states, as a response to Ethiopia’s pursuit of sovereign sea access.

What’s next? The four leaders agreed to meet periodically and set up a joint mechanism to track progress. The coming period awaits how Addis Ababa responds to the declaration and whether any of its three planned dams move past the proposal stage.