Sudan closes El Gedaref border crossing with Ethiopia

The Sudanese authorities reportedly closed the eastern Sudanese El Galabat border crossing with Ethiopia yesterday morning after battles between members of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and fighters of the Fano militia in the Amhara region encroached the border with El Gedaref, according to Sudanese at a reception camp near Metema.

Following violent clashes in Metema in Amhara, reports indicated that Fano militiamen fighting the Ethiopian government had taken control of the town.

Sudanese refugees at a reception camp near Metema told Radio Dabanga that the military unrest caused water and food outages for the second day in a row.

One of them said that the camp is entirely devoid of water, with “no water source to be found in the vicinity”. The only water source in Metema cannot be reached as the town “is witnessing fierce fighting between the Ethiopian government and the armed opposition, which has led to the closure of all shops”.

Relief organisations are unable to provide drinking water and food because of the deteriorating security situation, he said.

“Fano militiamen arrived at the Metema reception camp yesterday in search of the policemen, but they did not find any of them,” the refugee added. “The Ethiopian police withdrew from all the camps in July following an attack on the police station near the Kumer camp that resulted in deaths and injuries among them… Fighting is continuing on the Shahidi Road, which increases the suffering of the people in the area and leads to new water and food supply challenges.”

The source said that the reception camp near Metema houses hundreds of refugees. Several of them have returned to Sudan.

El Gedaref

The government of El Gedaref reported on Sunday that 2,716 Sudanese refugees who returned from Ethiopia were hosted at a shelter camp in El Gallabat town.

The state governor, Lt Gen Mohamed Hasan Ahmed, during a visit to El Galabat on Sunday, called on the returnees, especially the youth, to resume their work and join the labour market, especially the agricultural sector. He also called on them to attend training camps to confront the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The governor said that the returnees are living in inhumane conditions in the current camp. [* See update below].

Sudanese who fled the violence in their country and sought shelter across the border in Ethiopia have been complaining about a lack of security in the region from the start. In August last year, the about 6,000 Sudanese refugees surviving in the makeshift camp in the Awlala forests in Amhara staged demonstrations demanding the provision of food and medicines. They also called for protection from repeated attacks by local bandits (called shifta in the region). 

After setting up a protest sit-in in May this year against the continuing insecurity in Awlala, about 2,500 refugees decided three months later to return to Sudan. As they did not have the means to pay for transport, they would walk to the border.

The government of El Gedaref agreed with UNHCR to establish three camps in the El Galabat border town to receive the returning Sudanese.

Amhara war

On August 1 last year, a full-scale war erupted between armed dissidents belonging to the Fano militia groups and the ENDF in Amhara. It quickly became “Ethiopia’s most serious security crisis since a two-year civil war in the Tigray region, which neighbours Amhara, ended in November” 2022, Aljazeera wrote at the time.

Human Rights Watch in April this year called for an independent UN inquiry into human rights abuses by the Ethiopian military in Amhara.

---

*Update: This article was edited to remove a quote attributed to El Gedaref governor, Lt Gen Mohamed Hasan Ahmed, as Radio Dabanga was unable to independently verify it.