From years to the present, Egypt faces one of the most serious challenges that may cause huge losses at the level of people, construction and agriculture in Egypt, those losses that remind us of major history disasters such as famines, plagues and epidemics that had a fatal impact on the march of civilization, and even Egypt passed With some of these losses, when the Nile dried up and stopped flowing in several incidents, perhaps the most famous of which occurred during the time of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah, whose years of ordeal were known as Al-Mustansiri's intensity and the collective mind in Egypt still evokes that ordeal after a thousand years of its occurrence due to its ugliness and cruelty.
Since the failure of the Renaissance Dam negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, The Egyptians are living with these fears every day after it became clear that the achievement of a "fair and balanced" agreement among all parties stalled.
History assures us that the human mind cannot conceive of a country like Egypt living without the Nile, and it was reported that when Amr ibn al-Aas conquered Egypt, "Omar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, knew what his people would be costly when the Nile stood alone on its scale as well as its shortcomings, And excessive sensitivity calls them to monopoly, and that monopoly calls for price escalation without drought, so Omar wrote to Amr asking him to explain the situation, and he replied: I found what Egypt narrates so that its people do not despise fourteen cubits, and the extent to which the rest of it is irrigated so that it prefers their need And they have another sixteen cubits of food for the other year, and the two frightened ends in the increase and decrease are thirst and rent twelve cubits in decrease and eighteen cubits in the increase "[1].
And the situation continued to do so in Egypt with the Nile, fourteen cubits at a minimum, which is the limit that once reduced, until the famine is resolved and prices rise, and if it increases, it sank Egypt and produced another famine with high prices after the crops sank, and for this reason life in Egypt was associated with the Nile There is no life without Neal.
Examples of this from history are not counted, perhaps the most famous of which is the terrible incident that occurred in the year 597 AH / 1201 AD which was mentioned by Al-Maqrizi, Ibn Taghri Bardi and Al-Baghdadi in their dates, when the Nile fell from flowing for three whole years, and Egypt unraveled the dire and very high prices in that ordeal that forced the people of Egypt to do things The human mind would not have believed it had it not been for the frequency with which it dates in minute details from historians on a large degree of objectivity, especially Al-Maqrizi and Ibn Tigray Bardi.
It is important to bring the entire text of Al-Maqrizi to see the effect of the Nile on the lives of the Egyptians, which at that time represented the cause of their happiness, prosperity and reassurance, which is also the main reason for the formation of the Egyptian human psychology and psychology throughout history, and how the morals of Egyptians change with the decline of the Nile and the lack of water.
Al-Maqrizi says in that tragedy that continued since the year 596-589 AH / 1200-12202 AD: “In it, the forces could not be found in the homes of Egypt, the prices increased and the bones increased until the dead people ate and ate each other, and a great mourning followed, and the prices started from the beginning of the year and extended for three years. The Nile is in it for a short period until the lack of power, and a great scholar with their families and children went out to Egypt to the Levant, so they died in the streets by starvation.
He encouraged death in the rich and the poor, and he informed the righteous (Ayyubid) shroud of the dead in his shroud - within a short period of time - about two hundred thousand people and twenty thousand people, and the dogs ate all of them, and the children were eaten a lot. So that it does not deny then people have deceived each other and taken from it is destined to be eaten, and if the weak conquered the weak he slaughtered and ate it, and many doctors were lost to many who called them to the sick then if the doctor became to his home he slaughtered and ate it.
Al-Maqrizi gives a heartbreaking story to a doctor who managed to narrowly survive this catastrophe by saying: “It was agreed that a person called a doctor and the doctor feared him and walked with him in apprehension, so that the person abounds in his way of remembrance of God Almighty, and he barely passes through a poor person but gives charity to him until they reach the house. The doctor was suspicious of what he saw, and he wanted us to enter it, when a man came out of the ruin and told the person who had brought the doctor: With this slowness, you came to us with one hunting. The doctor scared, and fled on his face, fleeing. If it had not been for God’s care for him and the speed of his enemy, he would have been arrested. ”
Al-Maqrizi completes his narration of the ruins that occurred in Greater Cairo, until people actually eat their children without exaggeration, saying: “Cairo and Egypt (Al-Fustat) have become more of their people, and those who die will not find their sides and become for several months until they are eaten or worn out, and presented to Cairo and Egypt were among the people of the villages (the countryside) creating a lot, and hunger increased, and lack of food until they ate the young sons of Adam, so the father ate his son grilled and cooked, as well as the mother, and the ruler won a group of them so they punished them until they became aware of this and spread the matter: and the woman was present and hid in her burial The shoulder of the little one or his thigh, as well as the man, and some of them entered the house of his neighbor, and he found the pot on the fire, waiting for it until it came down to eat from it. A woman found the children’s meat with them, when he disclosed it until people took food and dinner and wrapped it up, and he said, “Prevent them from it, because they found nothing of food, neither cereals nor vegetables.”
This great scourge had its impact on the population of Egyptians, as it decreased very significantly, in addition to its economic impact on the lives of the remaining people. "People had died so that the people of the village who were five hundred people were left with either one or three joints, and no bridges were found." Neither the villages nor those who do their interests work, and the roads in Egypt and Cairo and their villages were executed, and then the worm ate what was sown. He found - with eight gold dinars, the ardeb, barley and beans with six gold dinars, and the lack of chicken from the land of Egypt, and a man from the Levant brought him and sold each chicken for a hundred dirhams and each two eggs for a dirham. Empty houses and sell them during the day, and the alleys of Cairo and Egypt used to have only a few houses, and Amer was left in Egypt except for the Shatt al-Nil, and the people of the villages went out to plow, so the man dies while he is holding the plow.
These are some of the horrific scenes presented by a trustworthy historian, such as the scholar Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi, which shows the extent of the catastrophe that occurred in Egypt at the end of the sixth century AH due to the cessation of the Nile from flowing for three consecutive years, a historical fact that confirms the lack of life in Egypt as soon as the Nile is lower than its natural flow.
In 1941 AD, the independence of Abyssinia was declared, and Ethiopia regained full sovereignty after the signing of the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement in December 1944, and Haile Selassie rose to power (1941 - 1974 AD).
The Egyptian-Ethiopian relations were of a degree of strength and durability in the era of Abdel Nasser - Selassie, and this durability may be due to the association of the Abyssinian Church until 1959AD before the Egyptian church was separated, but the clash began early in the fifties when the Egyptians knew that Ethiopia would start building the Tess Dam Abay, "Abdel Nasser sent his Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Fawzi to Ethiopia, warning it against prejudice to Egypt's share of the Nile waters, which Ethiopia accepted because of its weak resources and the strength of relations with Egypt at the time [3].
However, these relations began to change during the rule of Anwar Sadat when Egypt joined the counter-Safari alliance in 1975, which Mengistu Miriam considered the new leader who turned against Silesi at that time an Egyptian conspiracy against Ethiopia, and when Sadat saw some Ethiopian attempts to build a number of dams, he came out with his statement The well-known: “We will not wait until we die of thirst, but rather we will go to die there in Ethiopia” [4]. After that, Egyptian-Ethiopian relations continued only formally until some tensions occurred during the era of Hosni Mubarak [5].
The first and real attempt to establish a reservoir that prevented the flow of Nile water to Egypt and Sudan began with the twentieth century. The project of building the Lake Tana Lake reservoir occupied the Egyptian government and Egyptian public opinion for a long time, reaching a maximum of 1933, when a conference was held in Addis Ababa that included Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and the engineering company. American company that was assigned to build this reservoir project. Britain was behind this project, which I paid much attention to for purely political matters, to preserve its influence and interests in Ethiopia, and to protect the sources of the Ethiopian Nile from the ambitions of the countries in it [6].
Britain has always been keen to keep the sources of the Nile Ethiopian safe from its occurrence in foreign hands that may be hostile to it and thus harms its position in Egypt and Sudan, as well as the agriculture and the inhabitants of these two countries, that Egypt and Sudan’s objection to this project met with listening ears on the British side, which was Occupies these two countries, and then the project was built on time, especially with its very high cost.
Since 1981, Ethiopia has sought to reclaim 227 thousand acres in the Blue Nile Basin, claiming that "there are no agreements between it and the Nile countries", and it has already implemented a number of projects such as the "Fisha" project - one of the tributaries of the Blue Nile - which affects Egypt's share of the Nile water. With about 0.5 billion cubic meters annually, the "Senet" project on one of the tributaries of the Atbara River, the "Khor Al-Fashin" project located in the easternmost part of Ethiopia, and affects the waters that reach Egypt by 4.5 billion cubic meters, and the "Libero" project on the Sobat River, and finally It completed the construction of the highest dam on the African continent on the headwaters of the Nile, which is the Tikizi Dam, which has a height of 188 meters, in February 2009, which reserves 9 billion cubic meters of water [7].
However, the most serious of these crises that occurred between the upstream and downstream countries began to appear gradually on the surface in May 2009 after the conference held by the water ministers of the Nile Basin countries in "Kinshasa", the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when Egypt called for adherence to the principle of consultation and prior notification in the event of establishing any Water projects on the banks of the Nile, in agreement with the provisions of international law that the upstream countries should commit not to cause any harm to the downstream countries, and in line with Egypt's historical rights to the share of the Nile waters, but those countries did not care about the Egyptian objection, and its argument was and still is In that, Egypt did not return to these countries when it built the High Dam, the Aswan Reservoir, and the Toshka Channel.
The Kinshasa meeting between the Nile Basin countries except Egypt and Sudan was the beginning of the great difficulties and challenges that exploded in the face of Egyptian politics in the last decade, which will have a direct impact on life in Egypt in the coming decades. During the Egyptian revolution in 2011, and the Egyptians preoccupied themselves, Ethiopia began In the construction of the largest dam on the Blue Nile, which was first called the Border Dam, then the Great Millennium Dam and finally the Renaissance Dam.
The idea of constructing the dam comes back when the American government agreed to the Ethiopian request in the possibility of cooperating with it to conduct a comprehensive study of the Blue Nile Basin, especially after Egypt's intention to construct the high dam at that time, and an official agreement was signed between the two governments in August 1957 AD, then the reclamation office of the Ministry The American Interior to participate in the joint project entitled "The Cooperative Program of the United States of America and Ethiopia to Study the Blue Nile Basin", and this extensive study of the project continued for a period of five years (1958-1964 AD), and that was during the construction of the High Dam in Egypt (1960-1970), and that ended The study provides a comprehensive report on hydrology, water quality, land surface shape, geology, mineral resources, groundwater, land use, and finally the socioeconomic situation [8].
The US office has identified 26 dam construction sites, the most important of which are four dams on the main blue Nile: Kradobe, Mabel, Mandaya, and the Renaissance Border Dam, with a total storage capacity of 81 billion cubic meters [9].
Ethiopia has benefited from these previous American studies, and has already started building the dam twenty kilometers from the Sudanese-Ethiopian border. Since 2011, Egypt has had to enter into strenuous negotiations and is still with the Ethiopian side in which Sudan is involved as an estranged country, and in March 2015 it was announced On the agreement of principles between the three countries, whose content was not to cause any harm to any of the three countries.
According to some experts, the "Agreement of Principles" concluded on the Renaissance Dam does not rise to the level of the legal contract between Egypt and Ethiopia, given the existence of a previous agreement between the two countries that was concluded in 1993 and was not implemented, and Ethiopia had pledged not to prejudice Egypt's water share or build Dams without prior notice and this agreement has not been honored [10].
The reality of the situation confirms that the Renaissance Dam will be able to store an amount of 74 billion cubic meters of blue Nile water, which will directly affect the share of water coming to Egypt and its annual amount of 55 billion cubic meters, which no longer meets all Egyptian challenges and requirements, chief among them the increase The steady population of 92 million is in this year's census.
In an interview with him on "Sky News Arabia" in February 2014, the former Egyptian irrigation minister, Mohamed Allam, enumerated the danger of the Renaissance Dam over Egypt. It rises to 4 million acres in the fourth and fifth year, and the construction of the Renaissance Dam will lead to the discharge of water from the High Dam Lake and the suspension of electricity generation turbines in the body of the High Dam and Aswan Reservoir, in addition to the significant deterioration in fish farms where it is expected to eliminate 50% to 75% From the fish farms in Egypt, and within the third year of filling the Renaissance Dam, the reservoir of the High Dam water that Egypt will resort to to compensate for the shortage from its annual share, which will decrease from 55 billion cubic meters to 30 billion cubic meters annually, will end.
More serious than this - according to Allam - the years of drought will severely affect Egypt, and the percentage of farmland land will rise to 3 million other acres, and Egypt will suffer during the long-term storage or operation of the Renaissance Dam from a permanent deficit in the water share, and the level of groundwater in Upper Egypt will decrease From 2 to 3 meters, and for the Delta of Egypt in the north you will suffer from severe salinity destroying a large percentage of the area of agricultural land in northern Egypt as a result of the low level of the Nile water and the entry of Mediterranean waters to the branches of Damietta and Rashid [11].
One of the risks addressed by some studies, headed by the International Committee of Ten made up of experts from the three countries in addition to international experts, which submitted its report in mid-2013 AD, that the safety factor of this dam is not known exactly to the present moment, as well as the threat The potential for human security in my downstream country, estimates go to the possibility of sinking the Sudanese capital to be a water level of 9 meters, and perhaps the sweep of the high dam in southern Egypt, and the danger of this on the dam and the potential for its cracking, especially since the Renaissance Dam is located in the Great African Groove area which is the region with which it rises Earthquake and fault probability [12] .
The Blue Nile coming from the headwaters of the Nile in Ethiopia is the most important tributary of the River Nile, as it represents 85% of the share of the Nile coming to Egypt, and history and reality have told us that just the decline or increase of the Nile water directly affects all aspects of life in Egypt, and perhaps building The High Dam in the period of the sixties of the twentieth century was intended to benefit from the coming floods, and to compensate for the shortage in the years of drought, that building the Renaissance Dam and Ethiopia's endeavor to implement its plans to fill and store the lake of the dam in a short period of time would inevitably lead to catastrophic consequences for Egypt, so would Egypt will witness the "intensity of the modern era", which may be longer, and harsher and darker than the "Mustansiriya intensity" that occurred a thousand years ago!