BEIRUT, LEBANON (7:50 A.M.) – A Sudanese newspaper quoted eyewitnesses as saying on Thursday that Ethiopian forces attacked the Sudanese army, prompting the latter to launch a retaliatory attack along the border.
According to Al-Sudani News, the Ethiopian forces attacked the Sudanese army from the eastern border in the Birkat Noreen region and imposing its control by advancing inside Sudanese territory, capturing a number of agricultural projects, while a Sudanese soldier was killed.
Sudanese military sources also told Asharq News Agency that renewed clashes in the Al-Fashaqa Al-Saghir area on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border claimed the lives of a Sudanese soldier and a number of Ethiopian soldiers.
The sources confirmed that “a number of Ethiopian army members were killed, while others were captured,” adding that “one Sudanese soldier was killed in these clashes that took place in Al-Fashaq Al-Saghir.”
During the past weeks, the border areas between Ethiopia and Sudan have witnessed clashes between the Sudanese army and Ethiopian armed forces, who have seized areas over which Khartoum maintains its sovereignty.
Last week, Bloomberg reported, citing two sources, who declined to be identified, that the Ethiopian army had deployed weapons , including tanks and anti-aircraft batteries, in recent weeks in the disputed Fashaqa region.
Ethiopia is demanding the re-demarcation of the border with Sudan, at a time when the Sudanese authorities are looking to put border markers, not to redraw them.
A member of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereignty Council, Yasser Al-Atta, said in a statement on Tuesday that Sudan possesses “all documents” that prove that the demarcation of the border between Sudan and Ethiopia “is indeed settled.”
Ethiopia refuses to recognize the demarcation of the border with Sudan, which took place in 1902, and is demanding that the disputed border territories be renegotiated.
