Ethiopia and Sudan accuse each other of attacks

NAIROBI — Ethiopia and Sudan traded accusations on Tuesday that each had violated the other's territory and were supporting insurgent forces.

A civil war has engulfed Sudan since 2023, while neighboring Ethiopia faces multiple insurgencies across its territory.

Analysts say the conflicts are increasingly overlapping and drawing in external actors from the wider region.

On Tuesday, Ethiopia's foreign ministry accused Sudan's army of supporting "mercenaries" with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, whose armed wing fought a civil war against the federal government from 2020 to 2022.

Relations between the TPLF and Addis Ababa remain tense.

"Sudan is serving as a hub for various anti-Ethiopian forces," the foreign ministry in Addis Ababa said on X, accusing Tigrayan forces of serving as mercenaries in Sudan.

"The Sudanese armed forces have also provided arms and financial support to these mercenaries, thereby facilitating their incursions along Ethiopia's western frontier," it added.

A senior official with the TPLF, Amanuel Assefa, told AFP: "We have no connections with the Sudanese authorities."

He said the government was blaming everyone "but themselves for their failures".

Sudan announced it would recall its ambassador to Addis Ababa "for consultation" following drone strikes.

Army spokesman Assim Awad told a press conference in Khartoum that drone attacks were being launched from Ethiopia in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE is seen as the primary backer of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group which has been at war with the Sudanese government since 2023, though it denies the accusations.

"The UAE notes this marked increase in unfounded accusations and deliberate propaganda... which actively undermines efforts to end the conflict and restore stability," an official said.

"These fabrications are part of a calculated pattern of deflection -- shifting blame to others to evade responsibility for their own actions -– and are intended to prolong the war and obstruct a genuine peace process," the UAE official added.

Awad said Sudan had "conclusive evidence" that UAE-made drones launched from Ethiopia's northeastern Bahir Dar airport region struck Sudanese army positions across several states on March 1 and 17.

They also targeted sites in Khartoum since Friday, including Khartoum airport on Monday, he said.

He said data recovered from a drone shot down in El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, showed it belonged to the UAE and had taken off from Bahir Dar.

At the same press conference, Sudan's army-aligned foreign minister, Mohieddin Salem, said his country was ready to "enter into an open confrontation" with Ethiopia "if it becomes necessary".

Ethiopia's foreign ministry dismissed the allegations as "baseless".

Drone attacks by both Sudan's army and the RSF have intensified across the country in recent months.

On Tuesday, a drone strike hit a fuel station in Kosti, White Nile state, about 300 kilometers south of Khartoum.

It killed three civilians and wounded two others, security and medical sources told AFP.

The RSF carried out a series of drone strikes on Khartoum last year, largely targeting military sites, power stations and water infrastructure.

Although the capital had seen relative calm in recent months, attacks resumed last week.

They killed five civilians in southern Omdurman, across the Nile from central Khartoum, and damaged a hospital in the southern Jebel Awliya area.

© 2026 AFP