Nervous Neighboring North-African Nations Negotiate, Noting Need for Niceness

Representatives from Sudan and Ethiopia on Tuesday kicked off their two-day summit in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in an effort to resolve the brewing catastrophe at the countries’ mutual border. A week after Ethiopian troops ambushed and killed four Sudanese soldiers and wounded over 20 more, Addis Ababa’s foreign minister acknowledged Tuesday that the rising tensions were “endangering … the cordial relation that exists between our two countries.” Sudan has in recent days deployed its forces to the disputed region, where Ethiopian farmers sometimes cultivate lands they claim as their own. The region has flared up recently after tens of thousands of Ethiopians fled to the area from the nearby Tigray Region, a site of internal Ethiopian conflict. On Tuesday, Addis’ top diplomat, while accusing Sudan of conducting “organized attacks” against Ethiopian farmers “using heavy machine guns,” expressed his hopes of reaching an “amicable solution” to the border demarcation issue.