El Gedaref farmers abducted by Ethiopian gunmen

Three farmers were abducted by militiamen near the border with Ethiopia in El Gedaref state on Wednesday. The area has witnessed frictions between farmers and armed Ethiopians starting March.

The abduction took place near the border town of El Lagadi in El Gedaref. A farmer from El Lagadi told Radio Dabanga that for four months, Ethiopian militiamen have warned farmers of planting the farmlands at the Sudanese side of the border.

“The gunmen have abducted the farmers, who were plowing the land, and took them to Ethiopia,” according to the farmer.

“There has been an increase in attacks by Ethiopian gunmen on farmers in the border areas since the beginning of the rainy season.” He called on the authorities to intervene and deter these attacks.

‘Protection of farmers’

In 2017 Sudanese farmers also called for speeding up the re-demarcation of the border with Ethiopia, as they claimed that Ethiopian farmers controlled more than 500,000 acres of Sudanese land.

This week the independent MP of El Fashaga constituency in El Gedaref, Mubarak El Nur called on the President Omar Al Bashir to immediately intervene to protect farmers in border areas and re-demarcate the border between the Sudanese state of El Gedaref and Ethiopia.

He commented on the murder of seven farmers on Monday and other attacks by Ethiopian militiamen.

On Wednesday in Khartoum, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Dr Workneh Gebeyehu told President Omar Al Bashir that Addis Ababa is determined to get over the events of the two countries’ borders, which led to the killing of Sudanese civilians by Ethiopian militiamen.