The Prime Minister of Sudan travels to Ethiopia concerned about the armed conflict in the border region of Tigray
The Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok, paid a brief visit to Ethiopia last Sunday, where he addressed several issues of interest to both countries. One of the issues Hamdok put on the table was mediation between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been at war since 4 November. The resolution of the conflict is of particular importance for Sudan as it shares a border with the Tigray region.
The Ethiopian government did not, however, mention having addressed this issue at the meeting. "Mediate what," said Ethiopian government spokesperson Billene Seyoum when asked by Reuters news agency about Sudan's offer. She went on to say that the military confrontation had ceased with the taking of Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, and that the interim administration was now in place. "The remnants of the criminal clique have fled," he added, referring to the FLPT. This is not the only offer in this respect that Ethiopia rejects, it even rejected that of the African Union.
The experts say Sudan could use its control over border crossings to put pressure on the parties to the conflict to negotiate, but so far it has shown no signs of doing so.
One issue related to the conflict that the Ethiopian executive did want to talk about was the information received by the President of the Government Committee, Lemma Tessema. He said that Ethiopian refugees returned from Sudan after CFLF forces bribed Sudanese military personnel to instigate attacks against civilians. Tessema also noted that elements of the CFLF had fled to refugee camps in Sudan and called on the Sudanese government to ensure the safety of Ethiopians there for fear of reprisals.
Between 1991 and 2018, the FLPT, which had played a leading role in the Civil War, was part of the governing coalition grouped around the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). In 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed decided to merge all the parties into a newly formed party called the Prosperity Party, which met with rejection from the ranks of the EPRDF and opted out of the coalition.
From then on the tension between the national government and the FLPT escalated until it erupted on 4 November, when Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive and decreed a state of emergency in Tigray, accusing the FLPT of attacking federal troops located in the region. The FLPT denied any involvement in these events. To deal with the conflict, Ahmed opted to dismiss the military leadership and put in front of it charges in favour of armed intervention.
Ahmed also claimed that the FLPT government had been preparing for military confrontation with the central government since 2018 by diverting development funds to purchase heavy weapons.
The Ethiopian national government declared victory on 29 November after the army took the regional capital, Mekelle. The LTFW, for its part, continues the struggle from the mountains surrounding the capital.
Most communications in the region have fallen and the Ethiopian government has restricted access to journalists and humanitarian aid agencies, making it difficult to determine the number of casualties. Even so, the UN estimates that thousands of people died and more than 950,000 were displaced, some 50,000 to Sudan.
The conflict in Tigray was not the only topic of dialogue between the Sudanese delegation and the Ethiopian government. The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, referred in his Twitter account to "good understanding on several issues that will further increase cooperation between our countries".
The meeting did agree on issues such as the resumption of negotiations on the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. A project that Sudan fears will restrict its access to the waters of the Nile. They also agreed to convene a meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East African regional bloc currently chaired by Hamdok.
