Ethiopia’s northern regions have been plagued by one of the worst droughts to face the area in decades. During a visit to one of the worst hit areas earlier on Jan. 31, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that “the people of this beautiful country are facing their worst drought in 30 years.” On March 24, the United Nations, along with humanitarian partners, launched a three-month campaign to aid drought-affected regions and raise awareness of the ensuing food crisis. Now some are fearing this could exacerbate the longstanding conflict between Cairo and Addis Ababa over water resources.

The Ethiopian plateau, which is one of the main sources of the Nile River, has faced frequent droughts, the worst of which occurred in 1984 and led to a famine that killed around 1 million Ethiopians. Meanwhile, climate forecast studies and reports confirmed that such recurrent waves of drought have decreased the Blue Nile flooding by up to 20% during the past years, and that Ethiopia is among the countries most vulnerable to increasing rates of drought and lack of rainfall due to climate change.

Fekahmed Negash Nuru, executive director of the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO) within the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), told Al-Monitor, “Ethiopia is facing a very severe drought due to El Nino, and the areas most affected by this wave are located in the north, south, northeastern and southeastern parts of the country, where rainfall disappeared during the dry season and decreased during the wet season.”

The exploitation of the water resources of the Blue Nile, which is behind 85% of the Nile River flow, has topped the Ethiopian government’s political agenda since the inauguration of the Renaissance Dam project in April 2011. The project will retain the flow of 79 billion cubic meters of water and has consequently been behind the conflict with Egypt. According to the latter, this step affects the amount of water flowing to the country.