Sudan files complaint with UN over Egypt election

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has filed a complaint with the UN Security Council against Egypt for holding the election in Halayeb and Shalateen, a disputed area on the Egypt-Sudan border*.

The Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ibrahim Ghandour said that there are three options for resolving Halayeb conflict: either by mutual consent, international resolutions, or through international arbitration which he said, Egypt is refusing.

A spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Abu Zeid, downplayed the complaint. He added that “there is nothing new in the subject to arouse”.

However, the Sudanese complaint comes at a time when Sudanese-Egyptian relations are clearly strained. On Monday, five Sudanese were found shot dead in the Sinai Peninsula, close to Egypt’s border with Israel.

Addressing parliament on Monday, the Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ibrahim Ghandour has accused the Egyptian authorities of committing many violations against Sudanese nationals in Egypt. According to his Ministry’s records, 16 Sudanese citizens have been shot dead by Egyptian border guards while trying to reach Israel. In addition, 23 Sudanese have been detained; four of them were released.

* Halayeb, an area of land measuring 20,580 square kilometres, lies on the border of Egypt and Sudan near the Red Sea, with Shalateen at its northern tip.

Both countries claim sovereignty over the area following Sudanese independence in 1956. The dispute is a result of the discrepancy in the demarcation of a “political boundary” set in 1899 by the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium and an “administrative boundary” set by Britain in 1902.

The Egyptian army seized control of Halayeb after a failed attempt by Islamists, backed by Sudan, to assassinate the then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995.