A Sudanese government delegation is discussing with the Egyptian leadership in Cairo the latest developments at the borders with Ethiopia, coinciding with Khartoum's decision to ban flights in the airspace of Gedaref State.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with a Sudanese delegation headed by a member of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant General Shams El-Din Kabbashi, accompanied by Minister of Culture and Information Faisal Mohamed Saleh, Director of the General Intelligence Service, Lieutenant General Gamal Abdel-Majid, and the Secretary-General of the Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant-General Mohamed El-Ghali Ali Youssef.

An informed Sudanese source said that the Sudanese delegation will explain to the Egyptian leadership the developments of the situation at the border with Ethiopia, as part of a tour that includes a number of countries in the region.

According to the Sovereignty Council's Facebook page, the visit comes to "discuss the course of bilateral relations and push areas of joint cooperation to welcome horizons that serve the interests of the peoples of the two countries."

Flight ban


Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority in Sudan announced a flight ban over the eastern state of Gedaref for security reasons.

On Wednesday, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that an Ethiopian military plane had penetrated Sudanese airspace, and that this "dangerous escalation" might have dire consequences and increase border tension.

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns this escalation from the Ethiopian side, as it demands that such hostilities not be repeated in the future, given their dangerous repercussions on the future of bilateral relations between the two countries and on security and stability in the Horn of Africa.

- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Sudan 🇸🇩 (@MofaSudan) January 13, 2021

Yesterday, the Ethiopian ambassador to Khartoum, Petal Amiru, accused the Sudanese army of seizing 9 camps inside his country since last November.

The head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abd al-Fattah al-Burhan, said during his visit to the borders yesterday, Wednesday, that the Sudanese soldiers at the border "were betrayed, and that they did not expect any violence with neighboring Ethiopia, but the Ethiopians started, and the initiator was darker."

Al-Burhan, who is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, stressed that all the lands that the army controlled at the border with Ethiopia are Sudanese.

"There are no Sudanese forces in Ethiopia. They are in Sudan and know very well the borders of their country," said the head of the National Border Commission in Sudan, Moaz Tango.

And Sudan announced at the end of last month - after armed confrontations that lasted about two weeks - that its forces had regained all the lands that were controlled by armed Ethiopian groups in Al-Fashaqa, which were settled by Ethiopian farmers supported by Ethiopian militias.

The tension exacerbated when Ethiopia accused the Sudanese forces of incursion into its territory, which Khartoum denied.