Sudan accuses Ethiopia of violating border deal
Mar 20, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has accused Ethiopian troops and farmers of violating their common frontier less than two weeks after talks aimed at resolving the long-running border dispute.
A report by the legislature of the border state of Gedaref indicated “a growing Ethiopian presence on the border strip and intensified farming and settlement activities inside Sudanese territories by Ethiopians who are backed by the Ethiopian authorities.”
The report by a state parliamentary committee claimed that the Ethiopians had penetrated as far as 28 kilometres (17 miles) into Sudan and “expelled Sudanese nationals from 38 villages.”
The committee called for the Sudanese army to “carry out their role in the areas agreed upon with the Ethiopians and provide them with the means of transport and communications.”
It called for a beefed up police presence in border villages, with residents serving as volunteer auxiliaries, and urged the reactivation of joint security committees with the authorities across the border.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir had called for a settlement of the border dispute between Sudanese and Ethiopian farmers in a meeting with state officials last Tuesday, the English-language Sudan Tribune reported.
At the meeting, which was attended by representatives of the state legislature, Beshir said the two governments “agreed on the principles and details of the border demarcation,” which has never been completed because of decades of civil war in the neighbouring countries.
His comments followed a meeting of the joint border development commission in the Ethiopian town of Bahar Dar on March 8 which made a series of recommendations on security and agriculture as well as border trade. It is due to meet again in September.
Before the latest tirade, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which runs a major operation in southern and eastern Sudan, had hailed the talks process under way between the two sides.
They were moving towards an “amicable demarcation of their disputed border in Galabat locality/Gedaref State, which will reduce tensions during the dry season when animals need grazing land,” the UN agency said in a January operations report.
(ST/AFP)