Month: December 2021

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit has reiterated a call by the regional African Union (AU) urging the warring parties to engage in peaceful dialogue to resolve their political differences.

Kiir, while addressing the end of the Fifth Governors Forum in Juba on Monday said that he was concerned that the ongoing fighting between the Ethiopian government troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front or TPLF, could cause security threats to the entire Horn of African region.

“In the interest of regional stability, I am registering South Sudan’s willingness to support the African Union’s mediation in Ethiopia to help the warring parties to narrow their differences,” Kiir said.

President Kiir said he has been talking to the two parties to amicably solve their differences before the situation escalates.

“These are people known to all of us and we have been with them for a very long time,” he said.

“The people in the Tigray land are now subjected to humanitarian disasters because the government has refused to allow relief to go to the affected people,” he said stressing that many people are suffering from the impasse.

President Kiir added that the recent escalation of military confrontation between the Sudanese Armed forces and the Ethiopian troops and their allied militias is also worrying as it causes a security threat to the region.

“I tried to talk to General Al Burhan to stop what they might have been thinking of,” Kiir said. “I didn’t talk to Prime Minister Abiy but I will still try to talk to him.”

Sudanese authorities announced on Saturday that several of its troops were killed in the Al Fashaga area by the Ethiopian government forces and their allied militia.

The Ethiopian government denied the allegation and instead blamed the TPLF for the attack on Sudanese forces.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday urged Tigrayan rebels to surrender, claiming government forces were nearing victory just one week after he vowed to lead military operations at the front.

The area has been the site of fierce fighting in recent weeks as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group tries to seize control of a critical highway that supplies the capital Addis Ababa.

Last week Abiy, a former lieutenant colonel in the military, announced that he would head to the battlefield after the TPLF claimed to control Shewa Robit, a town just 220 kilometers (135 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa by road.

Fears of a rebel march on the capital have prompted the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and other countries to urge their citizens to leave Ethiopia as soon as possible, though Abiy’s government says TPLF gains are overstated and the city is secure.

War broke out between the two sides in November 2020, with Abiy sending troops into the northernmost Tigray region to topple the TPLF – a move he said came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps.

Thousands have been killed, more than two million have been displaced and hundreds of thousands driven into famine-like conditions, according to UN estimates.

The African Union’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, and other diplomats are trying to broker a ceasefire, though there has been little evident progress so far.

Source: Radio Tamazuj

Clashes resumed between Sudanese army troops and Ethiopian forces in El Fashaga, east of the Atbara River, in El Gedaref on Tuesday morning, one day after a visit by the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan.

At least 20 members of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have already died in clashes with Ethiopian forces and militiamen, who ambushed them in the border area of El Fashaga El Soghra in El Gedaref, the SAF said in a statement on Sunday. The SAF also asserts that it inflicted “heavy losses of life” on Ethiopian troops and militiamen who attacked them.

On Monday, the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan Armed Forces, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, visited the forces stationed in the Barakat Noreen area, in the border town El Fashagaa in El Gedaref. He renewed his assurances that “El Fashaga is Sudanese land” and pledged “not to concede one inch of Sudanese territory”.

El Burhan affirmed that “the Sudanese people stand by their armed forces and support them to extend their control over the entire national territory”. He encouraged that public in the area to continue with their agricultural activities and daily lives, pledging the determination of the armed forces to protect them from any threats, and the army’s commitment to securing their farms.

Yesterday, Sudanese military sources reported the arrival of Ethiopian military reinforcements in Khor Humur.

Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu has denied that Ethiopian army forces attacked the Sudanese army in the border area between the two countries last week.

Refugees

Over the past two days, operations began to transport 668 of the 2,390 Ethiopian refugees who recently arrived from war-torn Tigray to the Basunda border area in El Gedaref, to the new Babakri camp in the state.

The authorities reported that 1,409 other refugees now present in other border areas will also be relocated to the Babakri camp in the next few days.

Colonial border

The 1,600 kilometre border between Sudan and Ethiopia was drawn in colonial times. It has never been clearly demarcated since Sudan became independent. The lack of clear border markers has made it easy for Ethiopian militants to occupy fertile farmlands in eastern El Gedaref.

In El Fashaga locality, Ethiopian farmers have been cultivating crops for decades. The lands are protected by Ethiopian gunmen.

The border area has been the source of frequent clashes over the last two years. Reportedly, 700,000 acres of Sudanese agricultural land has been illegally appropriated by Ethiopian farmers since the 1960s.

Source: Radio Dabanga

Sudanese authorities have released journalist and Sudan TV staff member Maher Abuljoukh after he spent 33 days in the security service detention centre near the Shendi parking lot in Khartoum North. Media continues to be silenced in Sudan and Hala 96 FM radio has been off air since the morning of the coup on November 25, 2021, by order of the military junta.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga after his release Abuljoukh said that on November 25, he heard knocks on the door of his house in Doroshab, Khartoum North, at exactly 3:30. When he opened the door, he saw four soldiers, three of them armed with Kalashnikovs, the fourth was carrying a pistol.

They told him to get into a four-wheel-drive vehicle, where they seized his mobile phone. He was taken to the detention centre of the Political Security near the Shendi parking lot in Khartoum North – which used to be part of the headquarters of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) during the regime of dictator Omar Al Bashir, and popularly called The Fridges, as it contained detention cells that were kept as cold as possible.

Abuljoukh spent two weeks in solitary confinement. He only left his cell twice, the first time when he was taken to another cell, and the second time to have his head shaved. After that, the treatment changed, and he was allowed to leave his cell, contact his family, and practice sports in the courtyard of the detention centre, where he met with other detainees, including Khaled Omar, Minister of Cabinet Affairs when he was held, journalist Fayez El Seleik, Taha Osman, Jaafar Hasan, Ismail El Taj, and others.

During his detention, Abuljoukh was not subjected to any beatings or insults. The security officer in charge of the detainees told them that they had nothing to do with their detention, and that another party held them.

He explained that they were released after they decided to embark on a hunger strike on Thursday, November 25.

Abuljoukh said he was held because he expressed his opinion about what he considers to be correct towards a Sudanese, civilian and democratic country whose people enjoy freedom, peace and full democracy.

Source: Radio Dabanga

Former senior US diplomat Susan D. Page, the former State Department Senior Advisor on Sudan, Prof Charlie Snyder, the former USAID Senior Policy Advisor on Sudan and South Sudan, Dr Brian D’Silva, and Amir Idris, professor of African history and politics at Fordham University in the USA, have published An Appeal on Sudan to Senior United States Government Officials, expressing “serious alarm about the ongoing political crisis in Sudan”. The appeal recommends that the US government resumes full operations at the US Embassy in Khartoum, and bring political pressure to bear, including “targeted sanctions against individuals who undermine the civilian-led transition”.

In the appeal, addressed to US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of the US Treasury Janet Yellen, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and the Administrator of USAID, Samantha Power, the signatories, who term themselves “concerned individuals” express “serious alarm about the ongoing political crisis in Sudan”.

The signatories believe that “the military takeover on October 25 2021 undermines the hard won political and civil rights of the Sudanese people, and we believe that Sudan continues to matter significantly to United States interests—on human rights, humanitarian, democratic and security grounds”.

The statement points out that in the past two years, “while we watched an authoritarian trend take hold globally the civilian-led transitional government in Sudan made remarkable advances on the economic, political, and legal fronts that many thought would have been impossible just a few years ago, including realizing the removal of the country from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism after two decades of isolation. However, the abrogation of the Constitutional Declaration through the military’s dissolution of the civilian-led transitional government headed by Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok in a matter of moments not only nullified these hard fought nationally and internationally recognized achievements but also the potential for leading to more conflict for the war-weary Sudanese people.”

‘A successful democratic transition in Sudan will serve the national security interests of the United States’

Despite Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok’s and General Abdel Fattah Buruhan’s recent political declaration to re-instate Abdalla Hamdok as Prime Minister, the future of Sudan’s democratic transition remain in jeopardy, the statement underscores. It points out that “a successful democratic transition in Sudan will serve the national security interests of the United States in Sudan and the Horn of Africa and we believe that the United States must move beyond issuing statements of concern and instead urge the parties – civilian and military – to resume negotiations on how to genuinely restore the democratic transition. The United States stands to gain in the region by helping the Sudanese people to win their struggle for freedom, peace, and justice, and by demonstrating the United States’ commitment to democracy and freedom.”

The signatories say that for this reason, the United States must conceive of a clear roadmap, with specific benchmarks and consequences, for Sudan’s transition and join actively in a strong multilateral strategy with European powers and other interested countries to end Sudan’s transitional crisis.

The signatories offer several recommendations including to concentrate US policy on the single overriding objective of restoring the democratic transition under firm civilian leadership, and fostering its success, in Sudan; to recognize the new civilian transitional government only after all detainees have been released and all employees of National and State governments who were removed by decree after October 25 are reinstated and their replacements relieved of duty; and the government presents a clear plan, agreed to by the IMF, for auditing and reforming the State Owned Enterprises.

The signatories also suggest the US impose “targeted sanctions against individuals who undermine the civilian-led transition, use violence and disproportionate and lethal force against peaceful demonstrators, and violate the basic human rights of freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and protection of civilians,” and that the US Embassy in Khartoum resume full operations, including expediting the nomination of (and ultimate placement of a Senate confirmed) US ambassador to Sudan.

Source: Radio Dabanga