Feb, 19th 2021 – African Union special envoy to Sudan has arrived in Khartoum to defuse mounting tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia. Ambassador Mohamed El Hacen arrived in Khartoum on Thursday and met Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and head of the Transitional Military Council, lieutenant-Gen Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman.
He also met Sudan’s first vice-president Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Sudan and Ethiopia accuse each other of acts of aggression after clashes erupted last year over an area of fertile land settled by Ethiopian farmers that Sudan says lies in its territory.
Khartoum and Addis Ababa are in dispute about their borders and construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River. Khartoum fears that filling the dam without an agreement will cause harm to its own dams.
Yesterday, the foreign ministry said that Sudan recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia as the tensions between the two countries still run high. Foreign ministry spokesman Mansour Boulad said, “Sudan has recalled its ambassador to Addis Ababa for consultations over Sudanese-Ethiopian relations.”
Khartoum on Sunday claimed that Ethiopia had allowed its troops to enter Sudan territory aggressively. Ethiopia last month claimed that the Sudanese forces were pushing further into the border region.
Khartoum then banned aircraft from flying over the Al-Fashaqa area after it alleged that Ethiopian military aircraft entered its airspace. This claim has been denied by Addis Ababa.
The fight has sent some 60,000 Ethiopian refugees running to Sudan.