The Egyptian army spokesman, Colonel Tamer Al-Rifai, announced on Saturday the arrival of ground, sea and air forces to Sudan to participate in a joint exercise, while Sudanese sources revealed to the island the presence of large crowds of Ethiopian forces in several locations on the border strip.

In a statement, Al-Rifai said, "Elements (whose strength has not been specified) from the Egyptian armed forces arrived in Sudan to participate in the joint training, the Nile Protectors."

He added that elements of the land, sea and air forces of both sides participate in the training in order to confirm the level of readiness.

He said that the exercise is "a continuation of the previous series of exercises, the Nile Eagles 1 and 2 (which took place in November 2020 and April 2021)."

Pictures released by an Egyptian army spokesman show the participation of a relatively large number of troops.

On Saturday, Lieutenant General Abdullah Al-Bashir, the Sudanese army's deputy chief of staff, said in statements broadcast by the Saudi Al-Hadath satellite channel, through its Twitter account, that "the joint forces are not a small number, and this exercise has its aftermath; it is an extension of several mixed (joint) exercises with Egypt."

He added that the exercises are not concerned with anything specific, but we say that we "benefit from the experiences of others, to be ready to defend our rights to the fullest extent."

On Friday, the Sudanese army announced, in a statement, the arrival of the Egyptian forces to Khartoum Air Base, along with columns of ground forces and vehicles that arrived by sea, without further details.

He explained that the arrival is in preparation for participating in the training project "Protectors of the Nile", between 26 and 31 May this year, with the aim of "unifying work methods to address the expected threats to the two countries."

Those maneuvers, which coincide with the stalled negotiations of the Renaissance Dam for months, come with Ethiopia's insistence on a second filling of the Renaissance Dam in July and August next, about a year after filling the first, even if no agreement was reached despite the refusal of an Egyptian and Sudanese.

In the strongest threat to Addis Ababa since the outbreak of the crisis 10 years ago, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said on 30 March that “the waters of the Nile are a red line, and any prejudice to Egypt's waters will have a reaction that threatens the stability of the entire region.”

Ethiopian Mobilization

And local sources in the state of Gedaref in eastern Sudan revealed to Al-Jazeera on Saturday the presence of large numbers of Ethiopian forces in several locations on the border, which includes disputed areas between the two countries.

The sources said that the Ethiopian crowds are concentrated in the two border areas of Al-Fashaqa Al-Kubra and Al-Fasha Al-Saghra.

She added that those crowds moved from within the Ethiopian rear towards sites that the Sudanese forces had retrieved during the past days.

The same sources estimated that crowd of about 4 thousand soldiers armed with heavy and light war vehicles.

According to local sources, the Ethiopian military moves on the tense borders between the two countries aim to secure preparations for the agricultural season for Ethiopian farmers in the border areas that the Sudanese army has not recovered.

After a military operation last November, Sudan confirmed that it had regained most of the lands that were controlled by Ethiopian militias, stressing that it had deployed its forces in the areas it had retaken.

For months, the two countries exchanged statements, and each confirmed the dependency of the disputed border areas to it, but they ruled out going to war.