Viral Swing: Ethiopia bans flights over dam for security reasons: aviation chief

Monday, 5 October 2020

Ethiopia bans flights over dam for security reasons: aviation chief

Ethiopia has banned all flights over its giant new hydropower dam on the Blue Nile for security reasons, the head of its civil aviation authority said on Monday, as the president pledged the dam would begin generating power in the next 12 months. The move could worsen Ethiopia's dispute with Egypt and Sudan over its $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Cairo has said could threaten its main supply of water. "All flights have been banned to secure the dam," the director-general of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority, Wesenyeleh Hunegnaw, told Reuters by phone.