At least 20 Sudanese soldiers were killed in clashes with Ethiopian forces along the disputed Al-Fashaqa border region, Sudan’s army said on Sunday. Khartoum stated that its soldiers were ambushed by the Ethiopian military and militias the previous day after trying to secure the harvest in the region.
“Our forces tasked with securing the harvest in Al-Fashaqa […] were attacked by groups of Ethiopian army forces and militias, who sought to intimidate farmers and spoil the harvest season,” the Sudanese armed forces said in a statement. The Sudanese army noted that although its troops had “repelled the attack” and “inflicted heavy losses in lives and equipment,” several of its own soldiers were killed as well.
A Sudanese official told Bloomberg on Sunday that the army lost 20 of its soldiers in the fighting. The official stated that Ethiopian forces started shelling Sudanese army positions while trying to secure the harvest. In response, the army crossed the Atbara river and was caught in an ambush by Ethiopian forces.
He noted that Sudanese reinforcements arrived and were massing on the riverbank. The situation along the border is “very tense,” he told the news agency.
Ties between the two neighbours have been strained by disputes over the Al-Fashaqa region. Both sides lay claim to Al-Fashaqa, a fertile area on the Sudan-Ethiopia border. Sudan claims that the area lies in its territory according to a demarcation treaty signed between the two nations in the early 1900s, a claim that Ethiopia denies.
Tensions were further inflamed in November 2020 after fighting erupted between the Ethiopian military and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. The fighting displaced millions of Tigrayans and tens of thousands of refugees fled to neighbouring Sudan via Al-Fashaqa. Sudan has said that the Tigrayan refugees should be far from the Ethiopian borders to ensure the safety of the Ethiopian refugees and has accused Ethiopian forces of intentionally targeting Tigrayans. Sudan hosts about 60,000 Ethiopian refugees, mainly from Tigray.
Moreover, in August, Sudan recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia over the latter’s rejection of Khartoum’s offer to mediate a ceasefire in the Tigray conflict. The following month, Sudan summoned the Ethiopian ambassador following the recovery of 29 corpses found floating on Sudan’s side of the Tekeze River. Sudan claimed that the bodies were of ethnic Tigrayans, indicating the possibility of mass executions by government-allied troops in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
Both sides are also locked in a bitter dispute over Ethiopia’s construction and filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile tributary. Sudan, along with Egypt, has opposed the filling of the dam, as they fear that it will reduce its own supply of Nile water and lead to a significant amount of evaporation and water loss, especially during the dry season.