Ethiopia Denies Sudanese Claims it Executed Seven Soldiers as Khartoum Withdraws Envoy

Addis Ababa has denounced Sudan’s version of the events that transpired on the border a day prior as a “misrepresentation,” claiming the seven Sudanese soldiers who were killed had crossed the border into Ethiopia.

“The incident took place within Ethiopian territory after incursions by a Sudanese regular army unit supported by elements of the terrorist TPLF,” the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry said in a Monday press release, referring to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) armed group that controls the northern Tigray province.

“The Ethiopian Government regrets the loss of life as a result of a skirmish between the Sudanese army and a local militia of which an investigation would be carried out soon,” the ministry said, adding that it “categorically rejects the misrepresentation of these facts by the Sudanese defense forces that unjustly put the blame on Ethiopia while it was the Sudanese army unit that has crossed into the Ethiopian border provoking the incident.”

“The Government of Ethiopia believes that the incident was deliberately concocted to undermine the deep-rooted relations between the peoples of Ethiopia and the Sudan. On top of that, the incident was designed to destruct Ethiopia from its path of peace and development,” the ministry added.

A day prior, Sudan’s ruling armed forces, which seized power from the civilian leadership of the provisional government last October, accused the Ethiopian Army of an “execution of seven Sudanese soldiers and a citizen who were prisoners of war.”

“[T]his treacherous situation will not pass without a response,” the Sudanese Army said, vowing it would “respond to this cowardly behavior.”

On Monday, Sudan’s acting foreign minister, Ali Al-Sadiq Ali, summoned the Ethiopian ambassador demanding answers and recalled Sudan’s ambassador in Addis Ababa.

The clash reportedly occurred in the vicinity of Al-Fashaga, an area of rich farmland in Sudan that abuts the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea. Addis and Khartoum have long feuded over control of the area, but reached a compromise in 2008 that allowed Ethiopian farmers to work the land under Sudanese administration. However, after the TPLF rebelled against the Ethiopian government in November 2020, Sudanese forces re-occupied the area, reigniting the dispute.

Sudan-Ethiopia border Al-Fashaqa

It also comes amid an ongoing refugee problem in Sudan, where the UN Refugee Agency has recorded more than 73,000 Ethiopians who have fled the fighting in Tigray, and a heated dispute between Ethiopia and downstream nations like Sudan and Egypt over the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile.