Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s office on Sunday said Sudan and Ethiopia will have negotiations next week to delineate their shared border, reported Al Jazeera. The talks will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 22.
The announcement came a week after Ethiopian forces reportedly ambushed an army force inside the Sudanese territories on the borderline between the two countries.
“Hamdok and his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed on Sunday discussed the meeting of the committee for delineating the borders which will be held on December 22,” the statement released by the prime minister’s office said.
“The joint border committee between Sudan and Ethiopia will resume work on Dec. 22,” the statement added.
Sudanese Prime Minister Hamdok and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy met on the sideline of the 38th Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Djibouti. The IGAD is an East African regional bloc comprising of eight countries. Hamdok is the current head of the bloc.
Last week, at least four Sudanese troops were killed and several others got injured in a cross-border attack by Ethiopian forces and rebels in the Abu Tyour area in eastern Sudan’s Gadarif province.
The Sudanese government deployed over 6,000 troops on the border when fighting began in Ethiopia’s Tigray region last month. The fighting started on Nov. 4 between Ethiopia’s government and the then-governing party in Tigray, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
While Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has declared the government’s victory in the fight, the clashes between Ethiopian federal and regional forces have continued.
According to United Nations estimates, thousands of people are believed to have been killed and over 950,000 displaced so far, some 50,000 of them into the Sudanese territory, mostly in al-Qadarif. The inflow of refugees adds to Sudan’s economic and security burdens.
