Egypt blames newly opened dam in Ethiopia for rising Nile levels and floods

(Patria) - Egypt on Friday blamed Ethiopia for the rise in the Nile River's water level and floods this week in two of its northernmost provinces, claiming that the unusually high water levels are a result of the East African country's poor management of its new controversial river dam, AP reported.

Floods in the Beheira and Menoufia provinces in the Nile Delta in Egypt submerged agricultural land and flooded village homes, many illegally built on silt and sediment deposits along canals that crisscross the delta.

Video footage posted online on Friday shows residents of Menoufia wading through waist-deep water and partially submerged homes. In Ashmoun, farmers and residents were urged to immediately abandon their land and homes. The extent of flood damage in Egypt is not yet known.

Earlier this week, floods along the Nile in war-torn Sudan, which borders both Egypt and Ethiopia, forced numerous villagers to evacuate their homes.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the United Nations announced on Thursday that about 100 households in Khartoum were also flooded.

Egypt claims it was forced to release water from its Aswan Dam on the Nile in the south of the country because it could not stop the rising water levels coming from Ethiopia, more than 2,000 kilometers away.

Ethiopia earlier this month opened the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest dam, to boost its economy. The nearly $5 billion dam, located on the Blue Nile, one of the Nile's two main tributaries, near Ethiopia's border with Sudan, is expected to double Ethiopia's electricity generation capacity, according to officials.

However, Egypt and Sudan claim that the dam in Ethiopia has violated an agreement, dating back to the colonial era, on how they should share the Nile's water resources.

On Friday, Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said in a statement that it is "closely monitoring the developments" related to what it calls "Ethiopia's reckless unilateral actions in managing its illegal dam, which violates international law." Ethiopia's actions represent a "direct threat to the lives and safety of the people of downstream countries," they stated.

Ethiopia claims it is not responsible for downstream floods and that its new dam on the Blue Nile has actually helped to "reduce the catastrophic effect" that floods might otherwise have caused in neighboring Sudan.