Sudanese General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Wednesday in Cairo for high-stakes talks focused on Sudan’s deepening civil war and shared concerns over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam project.

The meeting at Al-Ittihadiya Palace comes amid Sudan’s 18-month conflict between Burhan’s military forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces—a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over 14 million people, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The leaders reviewed regional and international peace efforts, seeking coordinated strategies to halt the violence that has gripped Sudan since April 2023. A central issue was the $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, which both Cairo and Khartoum blame for recent flooding and fear could severely restrict downstream water flows.

Egypt, which depends on the Nile for 97% of its freshwater, has long viewed the dam as a national security threat. Sudan, meanwhile, has raised alarms over the risks of unregulated reservoir filling, which it says could worsen its environmental and humanitarian challenges. Ethiopia maintains that the GERD is vital for its energy independence and poses no threat, calling for renewed binding negotiations—talks that have stalled since 2021.

Burhan and Sissi, both military leaders navigating fragile political transitions, framed their dialogue as a step toward joint crisis management. While no concrete breakthroughs were announced, the meeting signals a tightening of Cairo-Khartoum ties amid shared vulnerabilities.

As Sudan’s war continues to draw in foreign actors—including the UAE and Russia—the leaders’ alignment on the dam issue adds a layer of hydro-diplomacy to an already volatile regional landscape. Observers now watch closely to see whether this bilateral engagement leads to trilateral progress with Ethiopia—or deepens the divide.