Sudan, Ethiopian regional officials call for deployment of border forces

October 9, 2017 (KHARTOUM) - Security meetings between two border states in Sudan and Ethiopia have called the deployment of joint forces along the border between the two countries to fight smuggling, human trafficking and outlaw gangs.

Despite the strong ties between Sudan and Ethiopia, there are serious criminal activities in the border areas including smuggling and human trafficking to reach Egypt and Libya through the Sudan.

At the end of the joint meetings in the Ethiopian city of Bahr Dar, the security committee of Sudan’s Gedaref state and Ethiopia’s Amhara region agreed to recommend to their respective national governments to approve to the deployment of joint forces along the border.

The committee, according to a press statement released Monday, the two delegations agreed to "form a high committee composed of security forces commanders border officials from the two sides to assess the scale of violations on agricultural land."

The statement further stressed the need to fight the different forms of smuggling, human trafficking, weapons, ammunition and drugs, and to fight outlaw gangs, and to ensure the establishment of security and stability and to make the border areas for mutual benefits.

For his part, Gadaref Governor Merghani Salih Sayed Ahmed stressed the importance of ensuring security and continuing work on development projects along the border strip to achieve stability in the border zone.

The governor of Amhara region Kadu AndrKago renewed his government’s keenness to stop all aggressors on Sudanese agricultural land and to fight all kinds of smuggling, weapons and drugs.

There many disputes between Ethiopian and Sudanese farmers over the ownership of framers on the border area particularly between Al-Fashga and Gadaref. Also,

Also, the Eritrea based Ethiopian rebel groups try often to cross the Sudanese border heading to Ethiopia, but the Sudanese authorities arrest the opponents and deliver them to Ethiopia.

The border areas, also, witnessed more than once the use of Ethiopian opponents, mostly fighters, from Eritrea to Sudan, handed over by the Ethiopian authorities. Read more here