Sudan summons Ethiopian ambassador on floating corpses
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The Sudan said Wednesday it had summoned Ethiopia’s ambassador to the Sudan and informed him that dozens of bodies pertaining to Tigray ethnic groups had been drifted by the River Sitet from inside Ethiopia into the Sudan.
The ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press statement saying the Ethiopian Ambassador to Sudan was informed by the Sudanese authorities of 29 corps carried by the Sitet River east of villages adjacent to Wad Al Helio Locality in Kasala State from 26 July to 8 August.
The statement said the relevant authorities in the state had taken the necessary procedural measures in this regard in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Law of the Republic of Sudan.
The ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the Ethiopian ambassador that the bodies were of Ethiopian citizens of the Tigray ethnic groups as identified by some Ethiopian individuals resident in the Wad Al Helio area.
The ministry said that it had asked the ambassador of Ethiopia to convey this situation to the authorities in his country.
Sudan is hosting large numbers of Ethiopian refugees, whose influx has increased in the past period, as the government of Sudan is keen to fulfill its obligations in this connection under International Law and according to the humanitarian ties toward these refugees.
The ministry’s statement, though stopping short of linking the crossing of dozens of bodies from Ethiopia via the river into the Sudan because of the fighting in Ethiopia between the Tigray rebels and the Ethiopian army, said it was clear that the hint was about the ongoing conflict between Ethiopia’s Tigray ethnic group and the federal government in Addis Ababa.
The war drove over 50,000 Ethiopian Tigray nationals into the Sudan, hosted over 30 km inside the Sudan away from the joint border.
The ministry’s statement said Sudan government viewed that the hosting camps should be far from the Ethiopian borders to ensure the safety of the Ethiopian refugees along with providing the necessary services for them.
-0-PANA MO/RA 8Sept2021
