ETHIOPIA ACCUSED AS MILITIA KILL FIVE WOMEN AND CHILD IN SUDANESE RAID
▶ Attack in disputed region adds to tension between countries divided over Nile dam project and border
Sudan said government-backed Ethiopian militiamen killed five women and a child during a raid inside its territory, further fuelling tension in the border region.
The countries have been sharply at odds over a Nile dam being built by Ethiopia.
Ethiopia warned Sudan it was running out of patience with its continued military build-up in the border region, an area at the centre of a decades-old territorial dispute.
Al Fashqa is within Sudan’s international boundaries, but has long been settled by Ethiopian farmers. There were weeks of clashes between forces from the two countries last year.
“The Sudanese side seems to be pushing in so as to inflame the situation,” Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said.
“Is Ethiopia going to start a war? Well, we are saying let’s work on diplomacy.”
Sudan strongly condemned the militia raid in its eastern food- producing Quadarif region and called on the international community to help stop such action.
It blamed the raid on Al Shafta militia, widely believed to be informally backed by the Ethiopian military.
Two Sudanese women remain missing after Monday’s raid, the government said.
It was the latest in a series of violent incidents in recent weeks in the region.
Sudanese troops moved to retake border areas long held by Ethiopia and defended by government-linked militias.
Fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region forced at least 50,000 people to flee their homes and seek refuge in Sudan.
Ethiopia accused the Sudanese military of taking advantage of the conflict against separatist rebels in Tigray to infiltrate its territory.
Sudan’s Information Minister Faisal Saleh denied the Ethiopian charges.
“We fear that these comments contain a hostile position towards Sudan,” Mr Saleh said. “We ask Ethiopia to stop attacking Sudanese territory and Sudanese farmers.”
Late on Tuesday he said that a joint committee set up last month to resolve differences over the border had failed to make any progress.
Sudan and Ethiopia have long had problems along their porous border, the demarcation of which was determined in agreements reached early in the last century. The countries are bound by close cultural ties but, in various conflicts since the 1950s, each side supported rebel groups fighting the other’s government.
The latest tension on the border, however, comes at a critical time in relations.
Sudan is angry about Ethiopia’s recent announcement that it will go ahead with a second filling of the water reservoir behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam this summer.
According to Addis Ababa, this would happen regardless of whether an agreement on the operation of the dam was reached with Sudan and Egypt.
Ethiopia began the initial filling of the dam last summer, without giving prior notice to either Sudan or Egypt.
The hydroelectric dam, Africa’s largest, is little more than 20 kilometres from the border with Sudan and on completion is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts of power.
Sudan fears disaster for its eastern region, through flooding and the disablement of its own hydroelectric dams on the Nile. For Egypt, the dam could mean a significant reduction in its vital share of the river’s waters.
The latest round of negotiations on the dam collapsed this week.