Sudan's prime minister says he will keep pushing for peace in Ethiopia
16 August, 2021
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on Sunday said he would press ahead with efforts to end the conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region.
Mr Hamdok said Sudan had reached out to all sides to promote peace in the region.
"We will continue to exert all efforts for Ethiopia to become stable, unified and secure," he said in Khartoum.
Northern Ethiopia has been racked by fighting since last November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the region's then ruling party.
Tens of thousands of Ethiopians have fled to refugee camps in Sudan to escape a conflict that the UN says has pushed 400,000 people into famine-like conditions.
Last week, Sudan said it recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia for "consultations" after Addis Ababa spurned a push by Khartoum to help resolve the conflict.
This month, Ethiopia said its trust in some of Sudan's leaders had been "eroded", and accused the Sudanese army of an "incursion" into Ethiopian territory.
Relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa have also soured over the contested border region of Fashaga, a fertile strip long cultivated by Ethiopian farmers but claimed by Sudan.
The tension comes at a delicate time between the two countries, which along with Egypt have been locked in inconclusive talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River.
Downstream nations Egypt and Sudan both fear the mega-dam threatens water supplies on which they depend.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com