Water War: East African Nations Squabble over River Nile

The East African newspaper reported this month that the spat was simmered by three previous unannounced visits to Cairo by a Ugandan water ministry official to negotiate a ’secret deal’ for Egypt to draw more of the Nile waters in contravention of existing multilateral agreements.

Dar es Salaam then demanded to see a copy of the political arrangement between Uganda, which shares Lake Victoria - which feeds the Nile - with Kenya and Tanzania, and Egypt whose economy is largely dependent on waters of the River Nile that drains into the Mediterranean.

It is a water war that is threatening the establishment of a permanent Nile Basin Commission that will see the regional neighbors drawing up an equitable sharing mechanism including security of water for all the riparian neighbors.