The war on the borders of Sudan and Ethiopia is evident after the Sudanese army, with wide political support and remarkable Egyptian solidarity, moved to restore hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land that were controlled by militias belonging to the Ethiopian Amhara Nationality.
For the second time in 8 months, the head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, arrived on Thursday at the borders of his country with Ethiopia in the state of Gedaref, in order to inspect the army forces there.
The visit came a day after the Sudanese army announced in an official statement that a force affiliated with it was ambushed by Ethiopian militias inside Sudanese territory, which resulted in loss of life and equipment.
The Sudanese statement added that Ethiopian militias and forces ambushed a force of the army that was combing the area around Mount Abu Tayyur inside Sudanese territory.
According to identical sources, the attack killed an officer and 3 soldiers.
Cairo condemned the attack, and a foreign ministry statement said, "The Arab Republic of Egypt extends its sincere condolences to the brotherly Sudan for the victims of the unfortunate assault on the Sudanese Armed Forces on the evening of Tuesday, December 15, 2020, in the Jabal Abu Tayyour area adjacent to the Ethiopian border."
For his part, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that his government "is closely following the incident" on the border with Al-Sudani.
Abi Ahmed confirmed - in a tweet on his Twitter account - that such incidents will not break the ties between the two countries, and it is clear that "those who stir up sedition do not understand the strength of our historical ties."
This is the third attack of its kind this year. Last April, Burhan inspected the borders following a similar attack that killed a Sudanese soldier.
And last May, the Sudanese army announced that Ethiopian militias backed by their country's army had attacked Sudanese territory, killing an officer, wounding 7 soldiers and missing another, in addition to the killing of a child and wounding 3 civilians.
Land reclaim
Despite the Sudanese army's moves to regain its lands, which increased in frequency during the war launched by the federal government in Ethiopia against the Tigrayan Liberation Front, the lands recovered so far appear to be minimal compared to the occupied lands.
Mubarak Al-Nour, deputy of the Fashak Department in the dissolved parliament, said to Al-Jazeera Net, "Ethiopian farmers, under the protection of the Amharic militias, control about two million acres of the most fertile Sudanese lands in Africa."
He clarifies that the army’s movements so far have only resulted in the return of (10-15 thousand acres) only, while the Ethiopian militias control 300 thousand acres of the Great Fashaqah, in addition to the entire territory of the Small Fashaqa (500 thousand acres), which is the area from which the army regained some of its lands .
According to the deputy of Al-Fashaqa, the move by the army is required and finds full support from the people of the region, but the issue is complicated and the territories will not return "easily", which requires dialogue between the two countries.
The Ethiopian forces penetrated in a settlement manner along the border strip between the two countries, with areas ranging between 10-20 km - according to the Sudanese MP - and transferred about two thousand farmers, farmers to those areas, and built 30 villages that resemble cities and have good infrastructure, in a clear attempt to change the composition Demographic.
Al-Nur added that Ethiopia's interest in introducing services to an area it occupies by laying hands was matched by Sudanese negligence since 1957, saying, "Ethiopian settlement increased after 1996 after an unannounced agricultural agreement signed by the governor of Gedaref, Ahmed Omar Badr, with the Ethiopian side."
It states that Al-Fashaqa Al-Kubra (a peninsula between the rivers Setit, Al-Atbrawi and Basalam) and Al-Saghir (a peninsula between the Al-Atbrawi and Salam rivers) are isolated from Sudan due to the lack of paved roads connecting them to the rest of the country.
The State River is one of the rivers that split the Fashaqa region (the island)
Political will
In turn, Abdullah Al-Sadiq, former head of the Sudanese Border Demarcation Committee, says, "The border between the two countries is drawn according to the border line drawn by the British Major Queen in 1902, and there is a map with that in the two countries."
It is reported to Al-Jazeera Net that the evacuation of Ethiopian settlements in Sudanese lands requires a decision and will from the federal government in Addis Ababa, in light of the Amhara (Abiy Ahmed's allies) believing that the lands of ruggedness are part of their region.
Al-Sadiq describes the Ethiopian presence in Al-Fashaqa as a blatant and immoral assault by Ethiopia of the Sudanese lands, especially since the border breaches at Al-Fashaqa reach more than 20 kilometers.
He explained that the borders between the two countries, according to the Qawain border line, amounted to 1605 kilometers, before Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia and the secession of southern Sudan from Sudan, and the Joint Border Commission was able to demarcate the remainder of the two countries' borders, which are 725 kilometers.
Al-Sadiq confirms that he headed the commissions for field demarcation between the two countries in August 2012, which concluded with the re-demarcation of borders on paper and an agreement on demarcation teams and the selection of camp sites and concrete columns, and he was waiting for the demarcation to begin on the ground in January, but the death of the president Ethiopian Minister Meles Zenawi (of Tigrayan nationality) has stopped it until now.
The head of the border demarcation committee concludes that the committee at that time presented the ousted president, Omar Al-Bashir, with a complete map of the border with Ethiopia, which shows through satellite images the Ethiopian penetrations, their projects, and their asphalted roads on the territory of Sudan.