Al-Qadarif

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Reaching the Al-Fashqa area on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border is not an easy task. If you survive the bumpy road and heavy rain, you will not escape the inspection and identity check stations, given that the area is now a theater of operations and military deployment.

According to the Sudanese narrative, some Ethiopian armed groups are still infiltrating surreptitiously and carrying out operations against the Sudanese forces after the latter expelled them from the disputed border areas, and recovered 95% of the area that Khartoum says belongs to Sudan, which amounted to more than two million acres of agricultural land.

The trip to Al-Fashqa Al-Soghra from the Sudanese city of Gedaref took about 4 hours, then we found ourselves on the Ethiopian border east of the Atbara River, where the Ethiopian forces did not allow the Sudanese to move there in the past, but now the Ethiopian forces have retreated to be stationed 6 kilometers from the Wadkuli area.

Al-Fashqa is a border area between Sudan and Ethiopia, bordered to the north by the Setit River, and to the east by the Atbara River. Al-Fashqa is divided into the Great and Lesser Al-Fashqa and the southern region, and it is crossed by many seasonal rivers, and it is one of the most fertile agricultural lands in Sudan.

The Al-Fashqa file returns to the international spotlight after statements made last Tuesday by Robert Goodek, the acting US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, in which he said that the dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan on the border in Al-Fashqa portends a serious conflict.

Military control and spread

We had to enter Al-Fashqa Al-Soghra through its main gate, which is the locality of Al-Qureisha, which is located on the eastern border with Ethiopia. There are officers who seem happy to liberate the area. An officer with the rank of colonel told us while standing among his soldiers, "We will not leave our land to anyone, we will fight in it until The last soldier.

The Sudanese army began to extend its control over the Fashaqa areas in the second week of November 2020, where it had not spread for nearly a quarter of a century, and we monitored the continued flow of Sudanese forces with columns of heavy weapons, military formations and anti-aircraft missiles, with the Sudanese army establishing a network of roads. Wide bridges and pitfalls, which were monitored by Al-Jazeera Net, facilitate the movement of these forces and secure their maneuvers and supply lines if the need arises.

After that, we crossed the eastern border towards the Umm Qazaz area, which is a few kilometers from the border village of Wadkuli, where the armed forces built the Wadkoli bridge, which is still being worked on as the residents started using it.

The area is also witnessing a return of residents to their areas - especially in Al-Fashqa Al-Soghra - with the presence of agricultural activity that we saw represented in the cultivation of fruit orchards, and fields of sesame, sorghum, sunflower and cotton, in fertile areas that are secured by the Sudanese army, with the presence of civil activity and the return of schools despite appearances military.

The engineering teams of the Sudanese army are working in full swing to build roads and bridges in Al-Fashqa (Al-Jazeera)

Prepare for war

We headed towards the Daaroud area in Al-Fashqa Al-Soghra, which is 17 kilometers from the Wadkuli area, and crossed the Atbara River to the east. There is preparedness and anticipation for the outbreak of war at any time, especially after the Ethiopian side mobilized its forces on the border, where the two sides take combat readiness positions along the border strip.

According to the statements of the commanders of the armed forces in the region to us, the army has recovered most of the Sudanese lands that lie within the borders of 1902, and only a few pockets remain in those areas, stressing that arrangements are currently being arranged to recover the rest of those lands, as they put it.

With the bases and the widespread deployment of the army and the movement of military mechanisms on both sides of the border, voices are rising regionally to stop the escalation and resume negotiations to demarcate the borders and mark again, to avoid the outbreak of an armed conflict that may have catastrophic repercussions on the two countries.

The economic value of the apartment

There is a great economic feasibility for the Al-Fashqa area, and this is the motive for the Sudanese side’s recent adherence to it, with its desire to increase pressure on Ethiopia after the faltering negotiations of the Renaissance Dam, but the Ethiopian side also seems to adhere to these lands, especially after controlling them for nearly two decades and establishing agricultural investments. Wide areas in those areas, and the scarcity of agricultural plains inside Ethiopia, as most of its lands are mountainous heights.

During the past two decades, the Ethiopian authorities encouraged groups of the Ethiopian Amhara nationalism to settle in those areas, and expanded into the Sudanese depth under the protection of Ethiopian armed groups known as the “Shifta Militia”, but the presence of the Sudanese forces and their progress to restore those areas pushed the Ethiopian groups to retreat towards The Ethiopian depth, leaving thousands of acres planted with cotton, sesame, corn and many other agricultural investments.

The lands of al-Fashqa al-Minor enjoy high fertility and are suitable for growing a number of cash crops such as cotton, sesame and sunflowers, in addition to corn, and represent an added value to the agricultural economy in the state of Gedaref, while it can supplement the balance of payments with huge amounts annually if they are used well, according to experts and the people of the region. who polled the island their opinions.

Many citizens of Wadkoli and Woodaroud - two villages adjacent to Al-Fashqa - believe that the presence of the armed forces and their control over the liberated lands in Al-Fashqa Al-Saghira enabled them to return to their agricultural projects east of the Atbara River after the availability of security and stability in the area, where some farmers actually began preparing for the agricultural season.

The influx of people and the movement of agricultural machinery also began, in addition to the Sudanese Armed Forces - with Egyptian support - paving a series of roads and constructing bridges such as Bridges, Dokuli and Woodaroud, in addition to the construction of 40 small ferries on the roads linking these areas to the east of the Atbara River.

The oldest peasant in Al-Fashqa

Mohamed Abdullah Abdul Majeed, 86, the oldest Sudanese farmer in the area, says that the Ethiopian harassment of the local population began since 1967 by preventing them from practicing agriculture on the pretext that these lands are not Sudanese, stressing that "since that time we have been fighting the Ethiopians, and we are cultivating lands in A year and we will be absent for years, and now it will return to us, and it is the land of our ancestors that we will never give up,” as he put it.

The farmer in the Lesser Al-Fashqa area, Hassan Youssef Abu Hussein - who inherited agriculture from his father in 1971 - recounts part of the suffering, as he told Al-Jazeera Net, "They used to come to Al-Fashqa (Ethiopian groups) for food, and we were not stingy on them, but they had settlement goals. The incident occurred in which 13 Sudanese were killed, after which the Sudanese army asked us to evacuate the area because it became an area of ​​operations.”

Youssef held the former regime responsible for neglecting the landscaping, adding that they have returned now after the army asked them to take over the area, but they are concerned - as he put it - about the way the government intends to redistribute the lands, which may cause harm to the original owners.

The Sudanese army is preparing roads and infrastructure to allow the return of farmers (Al-Jazeera)

Road and bridge network

It seems that the people and the armed forces are racing against time to complete the construction of the rest of the bridges and ferries before the flood season, which may lead to isolating Al-Fashqa from its surroundings for several months and cutting the supply and transportation lines.

The Daaroud Bridge is the largest bridge built by the armed forces in the Al-Fashqa area, and Major Engineer Yassin Abdel Fattah Bashir, the engineering advisor to the Commander in Chief - Al Jazeera Net - stated that the start of work on the Daaroud Bridge was last February to be completed now after the installation of the body and concrete works, and considered it a real addition. For development in the region, linking the locality of Quraisha with the Al-Fashqa area

Abdel-Fattah enumerated the roads that the armed forces have recently constructed, which are the Dukhat al-Qureisha road, may God bless Berber, as well as the Qena mountain road, Khor Zaraf, in addition to other floating roads and bridges that the armed forces have built from al-Fashqa al-Kubra to the Rahad River, and the areas of “Tayeh Bassuna”, He considered this effort a real addition to the area that was completely secured, as he put it.