Sudan accuses Ethiopia, UAE of being behind recent drone attacks

[0:00] sudan's recalled its ambassador to ethiopia accusing the government there of launching drones [0:04] into its capital khatoum a top army general says an investigation into monday's incident revealed [0:10] that the drones were supplied by the united arab emirates brigadier general asim awed at the wakham [0:15] also said there were evidence previous attacks all came from the ethiopian city of bahir dar [0:22] in the past the uae has denied allegations of any involvement in the sudan conflict [0:27] what ethiopia and the uae have done is a direct aggression against sudan and will not be met [0:36] with silence our armed forces are fully prepared to deal with any threat in a way that preserves the [0:42] dignity sovereignty and security of the nation ethiopia's foreign affairs ministry has released [0:48] a statement dismissing sudan's claims as baseless it's instead accusing officials in khartoum of [0:54] supporting what it says are mercenaries from the tigray people's liberation front to fight in the [1:00] conflict ethiopia's class classified the tplf as a terrorist organization ethiopia says sudan has [1:07] provided weapons and financial support to the group and it adds that sudan is being used as a hub for [1:13] several anti-ethiopian forces alan boswell is the horn of africa director of the international crisis [1:18] group he's joining us now from nairobi thank you very much indeed for being with us alan just give us [1:23] your take what's the context on this latest attack well the attack itself uh is not necessarily [1:34] something that's new uh both alan good to have you back we've got our technical problems sorted out [1:40] um you were describing to us uh just a few moments ago your con your context of what's happening here [1:46] you were saying this kind of uh back and forth is not something new yeah but this is a worrying [1:54] escalation that we are seeing between sudan and ethiopia i mean both countries as you know are facing [2:00] massive internal challenges and essentially both sides now see the other as supporting their armed [2:06] opponents and are increasingly openly accusing them of doing so and that obviously creates a very [2:12] dangerous dynamic between the two countries um and risks making their own internal challenges much worse [2:18] and also makes both of their conflicts even more regionalized why do you think this is happening now [2:27] well the main trigger really is just that this war in sudan just continues to escalate with no clear [2:33] off-ramp and it is really starting to um tear apart the horn of africa region frankly and you have a [2:40] number of outside countries which back the sunni's army as you mentioned uh there's ample evidence that [2:45] the uae is backing the other side of sudan's war the rsf and these these uh uh they all have their own [2:51] regional allies and basically we're seeing a region that's getting very polarized and you're having [2:57] relations for instance between uh general burhan who rules sudan and prime minister abi who rules [3:03] ethiopia previously we did have abi and burhan able to have something of a cordial relationship [3:09] if not cordial at least working relationship so that they could uh stop escalation against each other [3:14] but we've seen those sorts of relationships start to break down as this region just gets more and [3:20] more divided and more and more dangerous i should point out again that the uae uae has denied [3:25] allegations that it's involved in the sudan conflict indeed other countries have done that as well but [3:30] you alluded to the the external factors shall we say the external influences within sudan that could be [3:37] exacerbating the situation that is on the ground what do you think could happen next if this situation [3:42] continues to escalate yeah well both warring parties in sudan uh would have run out of munitions very [3:52] early in this war if it wasn't for the backing they're getting from the outside and the level [3:56] of escalation we've seen coming from uh the outside regional powers on both sides of the war is [4:02] unprecedented for sudan and is dramatically changing the shape of of this region um and the other major [4:09] uh domino that many fear will fall is is the um ongoing escalation in ethiopia's uh tigray region where [4:17] we saw a big civil war just a few years ago we had an escalation there today as well and the standoff [4:23] between ethiopia and eritrea now ethiopia sees two main regional foes in its neighborhood ethiopia eritrea [4:32] and egypt and both of them are backing the sunni's army in this war and so that makes ethiopia feel [4:38] increasingly cornered even as from sudan's perspective they see ethiopia increasingly being used [4:44] to support uh their opponent in the war rsf so you can see how this is getting increasingly entangled [4:50] and there's a risk that uh the two the two situations in both countries start to become [4:56] merged and we see a much wider and messy entangled war is there any opportunity to try to de-escalate [5:03] or take the heat out of this situation and would have to would it have to come from inside both [5:08] countries themselves or other external forces the other um external influences that could actually [5:15] try to take some of the heat out of this situation yeah i think when it comes to the sudan war itself [5:22] the outside players are now so deeply involved that some of the de-escalation num needs to come from [5:28] outside within the broader region um and that has been for instance a focus of u.s diplomacy uh but but [5:35] that has yet to gain traction in terms of the relations in this escalation between sudan and [5:41] ethiopia the leaders uh general burhand and prime minister abi they they have the ability to de-escalate [5:49] this themselves um unfortunately i think they might be in being emboldened and encouraged on this path [5:55] towards escalation by their outside backers um but they have shown in the past that when they need to [6:00] they're able to to meet together and to and to de-escalate things because really this is a [6:06] situation that benefits neither if both sides get more deeply involved in the other civil war [6:11] alan boswell is horn of africa director at the international crisis group we appreciate it alan [6:15] thank you very much indeed thanks rob