Egyptians provided yet another proof of their arrogance by attacking Ethiopia’s embassy in Cairo today.
Read below the reports from Egyptian media (the news from the Arabic media are translated by Google and further edited to make them comprehensible).
The Arabic website of AlJazeera reported:
Hundreds of Egyptians protested in front of the Ethiopian embassy in Cairo, in protest at the start of the construction of the Renaissance Dam, demanding the expulsion of the Ethiopian ambassador from Egypt.
The demonstrators chanted slogans calling for the expulsion of the Ethiopian ambassador to their country, in protest at the start of the Ethiopian government to build a dam Renaissance, and begun converting the course of the Blue Nile, also chanted slogans demanding the drop “rule wizard” in reference to the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which represents the ruling regime.
The protesters distributed a statement in which it denounced what they saw as a failure of the government to deal with the Nile water file, and also demanded the departure of the government and the fall of the regime. The demonstration was organized at the invitation of Copts without Borders and attended by representatives of other movements, most notably the Egyptians against injustice and the Youth Union for Nile Basin.
The Egyptian outlet Aswat Masriya reported:
Scores of demonstrators staged a protest on Friday at the Ethiopian embassy headquarters in Cairo to demand expelling the Ethiopian ambassador to Egypt and call for halting the Renaissance Dam project, al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported.
Ethiopia has begun implementing a project to build a $4.7 billion dam. The project entails diverting the Blue Nile which may affect downstream countries. The demonstrators chanted slogans condemning Ethiopia’s policies and lifted banners attacking the dam building process.
The embassy prevented the protesters from burning the Ethiopian flag after one demonstrator attempted to down the flag.
The state-owned Al-Ahram reported:
Dozens of Egyptian protesters gathered outside the Ethiopian embassy in Cairo on Friday to protest Addis Ababa’s decision earlier this week to temporarily divert the course of the Blue Nile as part of a project to build a series of dams on the river. Protesters held banners aloft reading, “We reject attempts to take our Nile Water.”
Others chanted: “We are the source of the Nile Basin.” “After Ethiopia’s surprising decision, bilateral relations have now been put to the test,” according to a statement by the ‘Copts without Borders’ group, one of the protests’ main organisers.
The statement added: “Any agreement between President Mohamed Morsi’s government and its Ethiopian counterpart will not be recognized, since Morsi has lost all legitimacy before the Egyptian people.”
Media reports indicated that Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Egypt, Mohammed Drirr, was not in the Embassy compound at the moment. That reduces the scale of offence on Ethiopia.
Surprisingly, Addis Ababa is silent about this outrageous attack on her embassy in Cairo.
To the contrary, in an apparent attempt to help the government in Cairo, the Ethiopian government called a sudden “press conference” late afternoon around 5 pm (thus the reason this blog could not attend the press conference).
It was reported by Walta as follows:
Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) says the river diversion of Abay/Nile in Ethiopia to make way for construction of the dam in the river bed doesn’t in any way reduce the amount of water flowing to Egypt.
Chief Executive Officer of the national electric utility Mihret Debebe explained those who claim the diversion has negative effect on the water flow of the river into downstream countries don’t have any scientific bases to prove their claim.
The flow of water in the River Abay is around 60 billion cubic meter and the diversion has no effect on this normal flow. Similar such river diversions on other rivers during hydroelectric dam construction don’t cause any such effect, the CEO added.
Those who claim the recent diversion on the river Abay has affected the flow of water to downstream countries do have their agenda to fix than telling what is really happening in the process.
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[Stay tuned]
[We will present Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Cairo Mohammed Drirr’s comment as soon as possible.]
All authors and members of the supporting team of this blog express their solidarity with the staff of Ethiopia’s embassy in Cairo who are apparently in enemy territory.
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