Sudan shuts all border crossings with Eritrea
KHARTOUM: Sudan has closed its eastern border with Eritrea, state media reported Saturday, days after Khartoum announced a sixmonth state of emergency in the regions of Kassala and North Kurdufan, state news agency SUNA said on Saturday.
“The governor of Kasala issued a decree to close all border crossings with Eritrea from the night of Jan. 5,” the official SUNA news agency reported.
It did not explain why the border was closed but said the decision comes after President Omar Bashir declared on Dec. 30 a state of emergency in Kasala and in North Kordofan state for six months.
Officials have said that decision was part of a government campaign to collect illegal arms in those two states.
A resident of Kasala told AFP that hundreds of Sudanese soldiers, several military vehicles and tanks had crossed through the town toward the border with Eritrea over the past two days.
Thousands of Eritreans, fleeing a repressive regime at home, cross into Sudan illegally through the border with Kasala every year and later make perilous voyages across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Apart from Kasala and North Kordofan, a state of emergency has been clamped in Sudan’s war-torn regions of Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan. Bread price hike sparks protests Sudanese police fired teargas on Saturday to disperse some 400 demonstrators who marched through the city of Sennar to protest against a hike in bread prices, eyewitnesses told Reuters.
The were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.