The Sudanese government on Tuesday summoned Ethiopia’s ambassador to Khartoum after 29 bodies of Ethiopian citizens from the Tigray ethnic group were found on the banks of a river flowing from Ethiopia, reported Aljazeera.
In a statement released late on Tuesday, the Sudanese foreign ministry said the bodies had been identified by Ethiopians residing in the Wad al Hulaywah area of eastern Sudan.
The ministry said that it summoned the Ethiopian ambassador, Petal Amero, on Aug. 30 and that the bodies had been found between July 26 and Aug. 8 on the Sudanese side of the Setit River, known as the Tekeze in Ethiopia. The statement, however, did not reveal how the people died.
The river runs along Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea before crossing into Sudan at the point where the three countries meet.
Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Dina Mufti, is yet to comment on the matter. The Ethiopian government has accused rival Tigray forces of dumping the bodies for propaganda purposes.
Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia are already high due to a conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region as well as over the construction of the giant hydropower dam, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on the Blue Nile river.
Thousands of people have fled Ethiopia and made entry into the eastern Sudanese region since the war in Tigray began. Thousands of them remain in refugee camps a short walk from the river, the de-factor borderline between Sudan and Ethiopia.
Last month, refugees in the area said that they found and buried around 50 bodies on the Sudanese side of the river.
In related news, Sudanese authorities said on Sunday they had confiscated a weapon shipment that arrived by air from Ethiopia on suspicion the arms were destined for use in “crimes against the state”.
Sudan’s interior ministry said later on Monday that the shipment was a part of a legal cargo imported by a licensed arms trader.
