Sudanese military sources confirmed to Al Jazeera that clashes renewed today, Tuesday, with Ethiopian forces in the Al-Fashqa Al-Soghra border area, while Ethiopia accused the Tigray Front of targeting Sudanese territory.
The sources added that the Sudanese forces advanced towards Mount Saqi'ah, east of Barkat Noreen, to comb the area and clean it of some pockets and ambushes of the Ethiopian forces, in order to secure the harvest season from any sudden attacks.
This comes at a time when the head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, said that Khartoum has no hostility with Addis Ababa, but it will not give up any inch of Sudan's land, as he put it.
Al-Burhan’s statements were issued from Al-Fashqa Al-Soghra in Gedaref state, where he was inspecting on Monday the forces stationed in the Barakat Noreen area on the border with Ethiopia.
Al-Burhan stressed that the Sudanese people stand by their armed forces and support them to extend their control over the entire national territory, calling on the citizens of the Al-Fashqa area to engage in their agricultural activities.
The Sovereignty Council said - in an official statement - that this visit comes after the Ethiopian attacks, which led to the killing of 6 soldiers from the south of the army, and the injury of more than 31 officers and soldiers.
Ethiopian exile
On the other hand, the Minister of the Ethiopian Government Communications Office, Jesse Tolo, denied that the Ethiopian army had attacked its Sudanese counterpart in the border area between the two countries.
Tolo stressed in statements that his country has no agenda to attack a sovereign state, but accused the Tigray Liberation Front of being behind the violence.
The Ethiopian minister said that the Front's fighters are conducting training in Sudan, and trying to introduce infiltrators into Ethiopia at different times.
In the midst of efforts to calm down, the Minister of State in the Ethiopian Government Communications Office, Salamawit Kasa, described the false and misleading news that the Ethiopian army attacked Sudan.
The Ethiopian minister stressed that any dispute with Khartoum will be resolved, taking into account the long history of relations between the two countries.
The area of Al-Fashqa is about two million acres, and it extends at a distance of 168 km with the Ethiopian border out of the total border distance of the Sudanese state of Gedaref with Ethiopia, which is about 265 km.
Al-Fashqa includes the most fertile agricultural lands in Sudan, and is divided into 3 regions: the Greater Fashqa, the Lesser Fashqa, and the Southern Region.
Last December, Khartoum said that the Sudanese army had imposed its control over Al-Fashqa, after it had been seized by "Ethiopian gangs" for a quarter of a century.
While Addis Ababa accuses its neighbor Sudan of controlling Ethiopian lands, a charge Khartoum denies.