Ethiopia on Monday debunked the report that it staged an attack over the weekend along its shared border with Sudan, blaming unrest in the disputed zone on rebels from its war-hit Tigray region.
Africa Daily News, New York recalls that on Saturday, Sudan’s military reported that ‘several’ soldiers had been killed in an attack by armed groups and militias linked to the Ethiopian military in the fertile expanse known as Al-Fashaqa.
The area has long been a source of tension between Addis Ababa and Khartoum, sparking deadly clashes over the last year.
However, in comments that aired on state media Sunday, Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu dismissed claims the military had attacked Sudan as ‘groundless’.
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Instead he blamed the violence on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the insurgent group that has been locked in a gruesome war against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government since November 2020 and claims to be approaching the capital Addis Ababa.
‘A large group of insurgents, bandits and terrorists had entered [from Sudan],’ Legesse said in comments aired by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, without providing evidence.
‘The Ethiopian National Defense Force and the local militia have destroyed them,’ he added.
Legesse also said the TPLF was training in Sudan and receiving support from unspecified ‘foreign backers’.
The land in Al-Fashaqa has for years been cultivated by Ethiopian farmers, though Sudan claims it falls within its territory.
In November 2020, around the time Abiy sent troops into Tigray to oust the TPLF, Khartoum stationed troops in Al-Fashaqa, a move Addis Ababa has described as an invasion.
Yet Legesse said Ethiopia was keen to resolve the matter peacefully.
‘The Ethiopian National Defence Force doesn’t have an agenda to open an attack on any sovereign country,’ he said, referring to the military.
‘There is land that the Sudanese forces have invaded. The government is sitting down to resolve [the dispute] in a peaceful process, through dialogue and negotiation’.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
