Sudan has condemned the violation of its airspace and borders by an Ethiopian military plane as tension between the two neigbours escalates.
The state-run Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported on Wednesday that the Sudan Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the incident as a “dangerous escalation that could have severe consequences and will result in more tension at the border area”.
The statement said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded that “such hostilities should not be repeated in the future due to their dangerous repercussions on the future of the bilateral relations between the two countries and on the security and stability in the Horn of Africa region”.
Ethiopia has not commented on the incident.
On Tuesday, Sudan and Ethiopia accused each other of incidents on their common border with Sudan appealing to the international community and regional organizations to condemn “criminal acts” carried out by Ethiopia.
Ethiopia, on its part, said Sudan had been inflaming the situation on the border.
SUNA reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday “strongly” condemned the “treacherous armed attack” by the Ethiopian militias on Quresha locality, in eastern Sudan, which killed five women and a child.
It quoted a statement issued by the ministry on Tuesday as saying two Sudanese women are also missing “due to the aggression”.
Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, without specifically mentioning Sudan’s complaint, said the Sudanese armed forces had been “inflaming” the situation at the border despite Ethiopia’s “magnanimous and tolerant attitude to settle the issues peacefully”.
The official Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) quoted the spokesperson of the Foreign ministry, Dina Mufti, as saying on Tuesday that the differences between the two countries on the border issue “have been there for 100 years” and both countries have tried to settle the them peacefully.
Dina said recently, however, with Ethiopia’s attention focused on the military action against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the north, “the Sudanese armed forces have pushed into Ethiopian territory and occupied farms and looted properties”.
The two countries have also disagreed on the construction of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) being built on the Blue Nile.
In this case, tensions among Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, over the dam began to rise after Ethiopia announced last year that it had started filling the reservoir.
Ethiopia has said the dam is essential for its development, while Egypt and Sudan worry about access to vital water supplies from the Nile.
Successive negotiation rounds between the three countries about the filling and operation of the GERD have ended in stalemate.
In the latest round of talks on Sunday, which stalled, Sudan said it presented a strongly-worded protest to Ethiopia and the African Union on Ethiopia’s decision to continue filling the dam for the second successive year next July with 13.5 billion cubic meters of water regardless of whether or not an agreement was reached.
