SUDAN

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Sudan army pushes to control disputed area with Ethiopia

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Adolu Agency | Al-Fashqa is claimed by both Sudan and Ethiopia

KHARTOUM, Sudan | The Sudanese army is carrying out a military push to take control of Barkhat, the last location in al-Fashqa that is still under Ethiopia’s control, local media reported on Tuesday.

Sudan Tribune newspaper, citing military sources, said clashes were underway since Monday between the Sudanese army and Ethiopian forces backed by Eritrean troops in the border area between the two countries.

The sources said the Sudanese army was quickly advancing towards Barkhat after retaking Kurdia and has “inflicted severe losses” on the Ethiopian troops and their allies.

According to the newspaper, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have massed inside the area with heavy military equipment.

There has been no official comment from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea on the reports.

With a 1,600-kilometer (994-mile) shared border, Sudan and Ethiopia are engaged in a conflict regarding al-Fashqa Triangle, a decades-long disputed border without rigid demarcation that was renewed in November.

While Khartoum said it imposed its control on Sudanese territory where Ethiopian militias were present, Addis Ababa accuses the Sudanese army of controlling the Ethiopian region, a claim denied by Khartoum.

*Ibrahim Mukhtar in Ankara contributed to this report.

Signing a bilateral military cooperation agreement, Egypt and Sudan warn Ethiopia not to fill the Renaissance Dam

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Cairo – Sputnik |  The Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Sudan considered that Ethiopia’s implementation of the second phase of filling the Renaissance Dam is a direct threat to the water security of the two countries.

Today, Tuesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Sudanese counterpart Maryam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi discussed a number of ways of cooperation between the two countries, in addition to the crisis of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, where they expressed concern about the stalled negotiations, and stressed the need to reach a binding agreement on filling and operating the dam that preserves the interests of the three countries. .

The two sides issued a joint statement reviewing the results of the Sudanese minister’s visit to Egypt, in which they expressed “concern about the stalled negotiations that took place under the auspices of the African Union, and stressed that Ethiopia’s implementation of the second phase of filling the Renaissance Dam unilaterally would pose a direct threat to the water security of Egypt and Sudan. ” .

The statement added, “This measure will be a material breach of the Declaration of Principles agreement concluded between the three countries in Khartoum on March 23, 2015.”

The two ministers stressed the need to continue coordination and continuous consultations between the two countries in this vital file, and they also agreed to inform the brotherly Arab countries of the developments in these negotiations.

This comes coinciding with the signing of the two countries today, Tuesday, an agreement for military cooperation between the two countries, on the sidelines of a visit by the Egyptian Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Army, Lieutenant General Mohamed Farid, to Khartoum.

The Sudanese army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Muhammad Othman Al-Hussein, said after the signing that the aim of the agreement is “to achieve national security for the two countries to build armed forces full of experience and knowledge,” directing “thanks to Egypt for standing by Sudan in difficult situations.”

For his part, Lieutenant General Mohamed Farid, Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, affirmed that Cairo seeks to “consolidate ties and relations with Sudan in all fields, especially military and security, and solidarity as a strategic approach imposed by the regional and international environment.”

The Egyptian Chief of Staff added that “Sudan and Egypt face common challenges and that there are multiple threats facing the national security in the two countries,” expressing his country’s readiness to meet all Sudan’s requests in all military fields, describing the level of military cooperation with Sudan as “unprecedented.”

Sudan and Ethiopia trade barbs over border dispute

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Al Jazeera | Clashes erupted last year between both forces over Al-Fashqa, an area of fertile land settled by Ethiopian farmers.

Sudan has accused Ethiopia of an “unforgivable insult” in its sharpest statement yet since a decades-old border dispute flared late last year.

Clashes erupted between Sudanese and Ethiopian forces over Al-Fashqa, an area of fertile land settled by Ethiopian farmers that Sudan says lies on its side of a border demarcated at the start of the 20th century, which Ethiopia rejects.

In a statement on Thursday, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said it believes “the conflict being trumpeted by the Sudanese government’s military wing could only serve the interests of a third party at the expense of the Sudanese people”.

Sudan’s foreign ministry responded on Saturday by saying “slander towards Sudan and accusation of being an agent for other parties is a grave and unforgivable insult”.

It added: “What the Ethiopian foreign ministry cannot deny is the third party whose troops entered with Ethiopian troops trespassing on Sudanese land.”

Earlier this week, Sudan accused Ethiopian troops of crossing the border after a similar act by Ethiopian aircraft last month, both of which Ethiopia denied.

Ethiopia on Thursday reiterated its accusation that Sudan had invaded in early November, attacked and displaced Ethiopians and took control of vacated military camps.

In its statement, Sudan said Ethiopia had affirmed the 1903 border agreement several times, most recently in 2013.

It accused Ethiopia’s foreign ministry of “exploiting [the border issue] for personal interests and for the specific interests of a certain group”.

Both countries called on each other to pursue legal means to resolve the border issues.

An African Union mediator arrived in Khartoum on Thursday to discuss the conflict, as well as the continuing negotiations between Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

Sudan and Ethiopia trade accusations in border conflict

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan on Saturday accused Ethiopia of an “unforgivable insult” in its sharpest statement since a decades-old border dispute flared late last year.

Clashes erupted between Sudanese and Ethiopian forces over Al-Fashqa, an area of fertile land settled by Ethiopian farmers that Sudan says lies on its side of a border demarcated at the start of the 20th century, which Ethiopia rejects.

In a statement on Thursday, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said it believes “the conflict being trumpeted by the Sudanese government’s military wing could only serve the interests of a third party at the expense of the Sudanese people”.

Sudan’s foreign ministry responded on Saturday by saying “slander towards Sudan and accusation of being an agent for other parties is a grave and unforgivable insult”.

It added: “What the Ethiopian foreign ministry cannot deny is the third party whose troops entered with Ethiopian troops trespassing on Sudanese land.”

Neither country specified the third parties to whom they were referring in their statements, although the veiled references underscored the potential for any conflict to embroil neighbouring countries.

Ethiopia may have been referring to Egypt, which has been angered by Ethiopia’s construction of a massive hydropower dam on the Blue Nile. Sudan has also expressed concerns over the dam.

Sudan may have been referring to Eritrea, whose troops entered Ethiopia to support beleaguered federal forces in Tigray after a regional force attacked military bases in November, according to the United States and European Union. Both Ethiopia and Eritrea have denied the incursion, although dozens of eyewitnesses say they have seen Eritrean soldiers in Ethiopia.

Earlier this week, Sudan accused Ethiopian troops of crossing the border after a similar act by Ethiopian aircraft last month, both of which Ethiopia denied.

Ethiopia on Thursday reiterated its accusation that Sudan had invaded in early November, attacked and displaced Ethiopians and took control of vacated military camps.

In its statement, Sudan said that Ethiopia had in the past affirmed its commitment to the 1903 border agreement several times, most recently in 2013. It accused Ethiopia’s foreign ministry of “exploiting (the border issue) for personal interests and for the specific interests of a certain group”.

Both countries called on each other to pursue legal means to resolve the border issues.

African Union mediator Mohamed Hassan Lebatt arrived in Khartoum on Thursday to discuss the conflict, as well as the ongoing negotiations between Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The Sudanese foreign ministry said in a statement late on Saturday that Lebatt had emphasized the need to reduce tensions between the two neighbors, and discouraged a military solution to the conflict.

Ethiopian foreign ministry official spokesman Dina Mufti, state minister of foreign affairs Redwan Hussein and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Sudan-Ethiopia mediation gathers steam

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The Arab Weekly | In Juba, Sudan’s head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will meet South Sudanese President Salva Kiir.

KHARTOUM – Leaders of Sudan and Ethiopia will separately travel to Juba next week to start a mediation bid by the South Sudanese government to defuse a border dispute.

Senior presidential aide Tut Gatluak, who has been travelling between Khartoum and Addis Ababa in recent weeks for talks with their leaders on the dispute, announced the visits on Wednesday.

While in Juba, Sudan’s head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will meet South Sudanese President Salva Kiir.

Depending on the outcome of these talks, a three-way summit could be held later in Juba, Gatluak said.

Sudan Wednesday recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia, the foreign ministry said, as tensions between the two countries are running high over a border region and Addis Ababa’s controversial Blue Nile dam.

“Sudan has recalled its ambassador to Addis Ababa for consultations over Sudanese-Ethiopian relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Mansour Boulad said.

He said the envoy would return to his post after the “completion of consultations”, without elaborating on the nature of the discussions.

Khartoum’s move comes amid rising tensions with Addis Ababa over the Al-Fashaqa border region, where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land claimed by Sudan.

The two neighbouring countries have been trading accusations of violence in the area and territorial violations.

On Sunday, Khartoum claimed that Ethiopia had allowed its troops to enter Sudanese territory in an act of “aggression” and “regrettable escalation.”

Last month, Ethiopia alleged that Sudanese forces were pushing further into the border region.

Khartoum has since last month banned aircraft from flying over the Al-Fashaqa area after alleging that an Ethiopian military aircraft entered its airspace, a claim denied by Addis Ababa.

Al-Fashaqa, which has seen sporadic clashes over the years, borders Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region, where deadly conflict erupted in November between Ethiopia’s federal and Tigray’s regional forces.

The fighting sent some 60,000 Ethiopian refugees fleeing into Sudan.

The tensions come at a delicate time between the two countries, which along with Egypt have been locked in inconclusive talks over the massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River.

This month, Sudan warned Ethiopia against going ahead with the second phase of fil

ling the mega dam, saying it would pose a “direct threat to Sudanese national security.”

Ethiopia, which says it has already reached its first-year target for filling the dam’s reservoir, has recently signalled it would proceed with the filling regardless of whether or not a deal was struck.

Khartoum hopes the dam will regulate annual flooding, but fears its own dams, including the Roseires and Merowe, will be harmed if no agreement is reached.

Sudan summons home envoy to Ethiopia amid border dispute

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CAIRO (AP) — Sudan has summoned its envoy to Ethiopia home for consultations amid a growing border dispute that has seen military buildup along the two countries’ border in recent weeks, an official said Wednesday.

Sudan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mansour Boulad did not provide more information about why Ambassador Gamal al-Sheikh was called home. On Sunday, the ministry said Ethiopian troops have crossed into Sudan and warned about “grave repercussions” on the region’s security and stability.

The border dispute between Sudan and Ethiopia has escalated in recent months after Sudan deployed troops to territories it says are occupied by Ethiopian farmers and militias. Since December, over a dozen Sudanese, including troops, were killed in cross-border attacks by Ethiopian forces in Sudan’s al-Qadarif province, according to Sudanese authorities.

The dispute centers on large swaths of agricultural land Sudan says are within its borders in the al-Fashqa area that Ethiopian farmers have cultivated for years. The two nations have held rounds of talks, most recently in Khartoum in December, to settle the dispute, but have not made progress.

Khartoum has said it reclaimed most of its territories and called on Ethiopia to withdraw troops from at least two points it says are inside Sudan.

Addis Ababa, however, accused Sudan of taking advantage of the deadly conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region to enter Ethiopian territory and loot property, kill civilians and displace thousands of people. Ethiopia has called for Sudanese troops to return to their positions before the Tigray fighting erupted in November, pitting Ethiopia’s federal forces against regional fighters.

Sudan has rejected the claim and insists it deployed troops to its own territories, according an agreement that demarcated the borders between the two nations in the early 1900s.

‘Ethiopia to welcome mediation of Turkey with Sudan’

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Anadolu Agency | ‘War is not an agenda. If mediation is offered by Turkey, Ethiopia will appreciate it,’ says Foreign Ministry spokesperson

ANKARA

If offered, Ethiopia would appreciate the Turkish government’s mediation on the recent border conflict with Sudan, said the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.

In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Ambassador Dina Mufti underscored that the Ethio-Sudanese border conflict could be solved through diplomatic means.

With a 1,600-km (994-mile) long shared border, Ethiopia and Sudan face issues regarding the Fashaga Triangle, a decades-long-disputed border without hard demarcation.

The spokesperson also appreciated the constructive relations within the Horn of Africa despite the recent issues with Sudan.

“Without exaggerating, We now have a great relationship with Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and Sudan despite the unfortunate borders situation that is created the other day,” he added.

He also urged cooperation and the creation of a grow-together spirit throughout the region. “The relationship in the north is changing for good. However, we need to cooperate in this regard,” he also noted.

Regarding the operation in Tigray, he said Ethiopia has already started rehabilitation and widened the humanitarian aid reach throughout the whole region.

“So far, 80% of the region has been covered. The rest is eventually opening, and Ethiopia mobilizes its aid to that area too,” Dina added.

Mentioning the misinformation campaign against the country, he said some forces make a “fortune” out of the “crisis” in developing countries like Ethiopia.

‘We want Ethio-Turkish relations to flourish’

Reminding the strategic bilateral ties, Dina Mufti told Anadolu Agency that Ethiopia wants the relations to flourish in various areas, including developmental, security, and economy.

During their visit to Turkey on Feb. 15-16, the ambassador said Ethiopia and Turkey’s foreign ministers had discussed further strengthening of socio-economic and security ties.

On Feb. 15, Ethiopia and Turkey have celebrated the 125th anniversary of diplomatic relations as Demeke Mekonnen, the Ethiopian deputy prime minister and foreign minister, arrived in Turkey for a brief work visit.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, with his counterpart Demeke, has also inaugurated Ethiopia’s new embassy building in the capital Ankara.

In Sudan Border Town, Desperate Ethiopians Find ‘Second Mother Country’

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New York Times | Abdi Latif Dahir | Tens of thousands of Christian refugees, fleeing the violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, have been given a warm welcome by the residents of a sleepy Sudanese town: “We are brothers.”

HAMDAYET, Sudan — The refugees were hungry and exhausted, their shoes dusty and worn from trudging for four days through the bush and forest of northwestern Ethiopia, hiding from soldiers, as they escaped the conflict in the country’s Tigray region.

Finally, they made it safely to the small Sudanese border town of Hamdayet. But they had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. So they sat in a sandy alley close to the center of town, asking passers-by for food and water.

That’s where Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, who works in a local restaurant, found them. Read more

Why is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam contentious?

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The Economist | The project has been a source of disputes in north-east Africa for a decade

DAMS HAVE several uses. They generate electricity, store water for crop irrigation and help to prevent floods. They can also cause dispute and heartache—for example, over damage to the environment or the displacement of people whose homes are lost beneath dammed waters. The construction of one on the Nile has sparked a quarrel between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), costing $5bn, will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric-power project once fully operational later this decade. Located on the Blue Nile in northern Ethiopia, upstream from Egypt and Sudan, it will produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity, twice as much as Ethiopia’s entire current output. Even though the dam could give the region a big economic boost, officials from the three countries have failed to strike a deal on how it will be operated. And the Egyptian government has even considered bombing it. In January yet another round of virtual talks failed. So why is the GERD so controversial?

Egypt frets that the dam will choke off the life-giving waters of the Nile. It has good reason to worry. Some 95% of the water consumed by the country’s 115m people is drawn from the river. Previous dams on the Nile have altered the floods and flow of sediments that the country relies on to grow food. The Nile Waters Agreements of 1929 and 1959 granted Egypt and Sudan the right to use all of the water between them, and gave Egypt the right of veto over upstream construction projects. Ethiopia, which was left out of the agreements, does not recognise them, prompting the disagreement over the impact of the GERD.

It is difficult to assess the exact impact of the new dam on downstream countries. Some studies suggest that Egypt could lose nearly half of its share of the water if Ethiopia filled the reservoir over a three-year period. Ethiopia has said it plans to raise the water level more slowly than that. Even so, the dam will undoubtedly give Ethiopia greater control over the river’s waters.

Egypt wants a legally binding agreement over river flows and demands that Ethiopia release certain amounts of water to top up the Nile, especially in the event of a drought, once the dam is operational. Ethiopia says it would prefer to agree on guidelines which carry no such legal compulsion. Until recently, Sudan had sided with its southern neighbour. But its attitude has shifted of late. In late November Sudanese officials noted an “abrupt” change in the amount of sediment in the water reaching their own Roseires dam, which sits downstream from the GERD. An exchange of letters between the two countries confirmed that Ethiopia had released some water from the GERD without prior warning. Sudanese officials fear that large releases of water could overwhelm their dam, which has a storage capacity less than a tenth of that of Ethiopia’s megaproject.

With or without Sudan, Egypt is not ready to concede defeat. Moreover, Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, may well be too distracted with problems at home to solve the dispute with his neighbours. In November the country fell back into civil war between the federal government and the region of Tigray. In recent weeks tensions have erupted between Sudanese forces and militias from Amhara, a region of Ethiopia, over contested farmland. The military clashes will surely delay talks about the dam even further. The African Union has already tried to mediate over the GERD. In September America suspended some aid to Ethiopia in an attempt to nudge it towards an agreement. International pressure could be the key to restarting the talks. But do not expect an agreement soon.

European envoy in Sudan to ease tension with Ethiopia

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Anadolu Agency | Tension escalated between Sudan and Ethiopia over their border dispute

A European special envoy is set to arrive in Sudan on Sunday for talks aimed at easing tension with Ethiopia over their border dispute.

“The High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy in the European Union, Josep Borrell, assigned the Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pekka Haavisto, to visit Sudan and Ethiopia as a special envoy of the European Union,” the EU Mission in Sudan said in a statement.

The visit aims “to help ease tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia, and to find out how the international community can provide support in finding peaceful solutions to the current crises facing the region”, the statement added.

Haavisto is expected to stay in Khartoum for two days where he will meet Sudan’s top officials, including Abdelfattah al-Burhan, chairman of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok and Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din.

Relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa witnessed tensions over Sudanese accusations to Ethiopia of supporting gangs that targeted Sudanese territories along with stuck talks over border demarcation.

Sudan: Further GERD filling ‘direct threat’ to national security

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Al Jazeera | Irrigation and water resources minister says the unilateral move by Ethiopia in July would ‘threaten the lives of half the population in central Sudan’.

Sudan has said neighbouring Ethiopia should not unilaterally go ahead with the further filling a massive dam on the Blue Nile River, saying such a move would threaten its national security.

The comments on Saturday by Sudanese Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Yasser Abbas marked the latest expression of Sudanese concern about Addis Ababa’s apparent determination to fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) without first reaching an agreement with Khartoum and Cairo.

“The filling of the Renaissance Dam by one side next July represents a direct threat to Sudan’s national security,” Abbas told Reuters news agency.

In a separate interview with AFP news agency, Abbas said the filling the dam would also “threaten the lives of half the population in central Sudan, as well as irrigation water for agricultural projects and power generation from [Sudan’s] Roseires Dam”.

There was no immediate reaction by Ethiopian officials.

Ethiopia has been building the GERD on the Blue Nile, close to its border with Sudan, and says the dam is crucial to its economic development. Sudan hopes the hydropower dam will regulate annual flooding, but fears that its own dams, including the Roseires and Merowe, would be harmed if no agreement is reached.

Egypt, meanwhile, views GERD as a big threat to its freshwater supplies, more than 90 percent of which come from the Nile.

Ethiopia began filling the reservoir behind its dam after the summer rains last year despite demands from Egypt and Sudan that it should first reach a binding agreement on the dam’s operation.

The latest three-way talks were held last month in the presence of observers from the African Union (AU) and European Union, but failed to make headway.

On Saturday, Abbas said Sudan was also proposing a mediation role for the United States, EU, United Nations and AU as a way of breaking the deadlock in talks about the dam between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.

The Blue Nile flows north into Sudan, then Egypt and is the Nile’s main tributary.

The Nile, the world’s longest river, is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to the 10 countries it traverses.

Its main tributaries, the White and Blue Nile, converge in Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt to drain into the Mediterranean Sea.

The warnings from Abbas come amid increased tensions between Addis Ababa and Khartoum in recent weeks following skirmishes at the Al-Fashaqa border region, where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land claimed by Sudan.

In December last year, Sudan accused Ethiopian “forces and militias” of ambushing its troops along the border, leaving four dead and more than 20 wounded. Both sides have since moved tanks and heavy weapons along the frontier, accusing each other of pushing further into the contested area.