BEIRUT, LEBANON (2:00 P.M.) – The Sudanese Armed Forces have sent a large number military reinforcements to the border with Ethiopia, after the Transitional Partners Council confirmed its support for the Sudanese army on the eastern borders.
According to the Sudanese Al-Mashhad website, Maryam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, the spokesperson for the Council, said that the meeting secured the need to expedite the provision of all support to the Sudanese soldiers, with an emphasis on respecting the Ethiopians residing in Sudan, and at the same time the Council denounced the rumors that aimed to harm relations between the two peoples.
It was previously reported that the Sudanese army had taken control of 11 sites inside its territory, and that it was continuing its advance towards the last site in its territory on the international border between the two countries.
The same sources added that the armed forces have set up fixed points in all the areas that they have retaken during the redeployment and progress in the past few days, noting that “the army’s position is good and the supply is continuing.”
For its part, Al-Arabiya TV quoted unnamed sources as saying that the Sudanese forces had reinforced their land and air units on the Ethiopian borders in preparation for an imminent Ethiopian attack.
Reliable military sources revealed to the Sudan Tribune website that Eritrean army forces had moved from the city of Umm Hajar, located on the border between Sudan and Eritrea, on their way to the Abdel Rafi area on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia.
“The forces came a few days ago via Halakim, loaded with heavy weapons,” they said.
The sources claimed that the Eritrean mobile forces participated with the Ethiopian army in its military operations against the Al-Taqari Region Liberation Front. Eritrea denied the involvement of its forces in the ongoing conflict.
The sources told Tribune that the Sudanese army is working to expel Ethiopian forces and militias from Li settlement, which is the largest militia stronghold.
More than a thousand Ethiopian farmers live in these settlements, who derive their strength from the militias that have worked to expel the Sudanese by force of arms.
For their part, the spokesman for the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Dina Mufti, blamed the Sudanese forces for the outbreak of the clashes that claimed the lives of Sudanese soldiers last Wednesday.
Mufti said that the Ethiopian militia attacked the Sudanese forces in the border incident as a precaution when some Sudanese troos tried to cross the border and try to seize the property of farmers, according to the Agwad Al-Amhari website.
Mufti added that the gunmen “entered a farmer’s field and took some things and left illegally. The problem and crisis is with the Sudanese government.”
