Qatar seeks to control Sudan’s water resources

Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar

While regimes try hard to maintain their peoples’ water resources, ousted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir wasted the country’s water potentials for the Qatar’s sake.

The River Nile is Sudan’s key resource of water as the country’s share totals 18.5 billion cubic meters annually, according to the Nile Water Agreement signed in 1959.

Sudan’s water resources from rainfall reach an average of 400 billion cubic meters annually, while renewable groundwater stands at around 4.2 billion cubic meters, according to data from the Sudanese Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources.

The areas irrigated by the river water total around 11 million feddans (acres), while the area irrigated by rainwater stands at around 29 million feddans, according to official data. There are roughly 200 million feddans, which are arable, of which only 20% is cultivated, according to data from the Sudanese Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources.

Al-Bashir’s regime sought to empower Qatar, Turkey and Iran in Sudan by launching the Dams Unit in 2005. The unit had a bad reputation for employing staff affiliated with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood to facilitate cooperation with Qatar.

Following the ouster of Bashir’s regime, the Sudanese military council has been trying to rid the country of the Brotherhood’s evil which ruined Sudan in all fields.

The Irrigation and Water Resources Ministry sacked 48 employees, who are affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood, working for the Dams Unit as part of the Cabinet’s plan for restructuring the Dams Unit.