Sudan’s Minister of Defence, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo is in Ababa, Ethiopia, for talks to ease the border tension between the two countries.
Daglo, who is known as Hemeti and the Deputy Chairman of Sudan Transitional Sovereign Council, was received by the Minister of Defence of Ethiopia, Abraham Belay, at Addis Ababa international airport on Saturday. He will be in Ethiopia for two days to meet with different government officials’, Sudan has said, according to Aljazeera.
According to Aljazeera’s news report, Daglo is the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a much-feared and powerful paramilitary unit that is accused of atrocities in the western region of Darfur.
Relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa deteriorated due to a territorial conflict over the disputed Al-Fashaqa border region, where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land claimed by Sudan.
There have been sporadic deadly clashes between the two sides in recent years.
Al-Fashaqa also borders Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region, and tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees have crossed into Sudan fleeing fighting.
In November, Sudan’s armed forces said six of its soldiers were killed in an attack by armed groups and militias linked to the Ethiopian military, a report denied by Addis Ababa, which blamed rebels from Tigray.
Sudan, along with Egypt, is also locked in a bitter dispute over Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile.
The two downstream countries, dependent on the river for most of their water, see Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam as an existential threat. Both Khartoum and Addis Ababa are mired in crises.
In April 2021, Sudan, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs Maryam El Sadig El Mahdi, demanded that the United Nations replace the Ethiopian soldiers deployed in the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) in the disputed Abyei region on the Sudan-South Sudan border with other soldiers because it is not reasonable to have Ethiopian forces in the strategic depths of Sudan at a time when Ethiopian forces are gathering on the eastern borders of Sudan.
According to El Mahdi, Ethiopia has shown unacceptable inflexibility in the Renaissance Dam negotiations and its decision to fill the Renaissance Dam again is contrary to international law.
El Mahdi earlier told reporters in Sudan that the Ethiopian encroachment on the eastern borders was underscoring that “there are great interests in Ethiopia in Sudan that must be preserved.”
In his part, Sudan’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Yasir Abbas, earlier said that all options remain open to Sudan on the issue of the Renaissance Dam, including the resort to the UN Security Council.
Earlier, Sudan demanded the replacement of the Ethiopian forces within the UNISFA in the wake of a border dispute with Ethiopia.
The UNISFA was established in 2011 by the UN Security Council to monitor the Abyei border. It is mainly composed of Ethiopian forces of around 4,200 troops and 50 police personnel. Later, the size of the forces was increased to 5,326, all of whom were from Ethiopia.
Sudan-Ethiopia relations have been strained by rising tensions, including deadly skirmishes, along the border between the two countries since September 2020.