Renewed Sudan-Ethiopia border clashes

Renewed border clashes between Sudanese army troops and Ethiopian forces in El Fashaga, east of the Atbara River, in El Gedaref continued on Wednesday. Sources indicate that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) aims to regain control of the Shai Beit camp in El Fashaga El Soghra. It is reported that Shai Beit is among the last three Ethiopian camps in Sudan that the army is seeking to restore.

At least 20 members of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have already died in clashes with Ethiopian forces and militiamen, who ambushed them in the border area of El Fashaga El Soghra in El Gedaref, the SAF said in a statement on Sunday. The SAF also asserts that it inflicted “heavy losses of life” on Ethiopian troops and militiamen who attacked them.

On Monday, the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan Armed Forces, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, visited the forces stationed in the Barakat Noreen area, in the border town El Fashaga in El Gedaref. He renewed his assurances that “El Fashaga is Sudanese land” and pledged “not to concede one inch of Sudanese territory”.

Refugees

Sudan’s Refugee Commission announced that 8,828 Ethiopian refugees from Tigray had registered fingerprints in the reception centres in Hamdayet and Medina 8 by Tuesday, while the total number of Ethiopians from Tigray relocated to the permanent camps in Um Rakouba and El Tuneidibba rose to 42,880.

Over the past days, operations began to transport 668 of the 2,390 Ethiopian refugees who recently arrived from war-torn Tigray to the Basunda border area in El Gedaref, to the new Babakri camp in the state.

The authorities reported that 1,409 other refugees now present in other border areas will also be relocated to the Babakri camp in the next few days.