Sudan seizes weapons transferred from Ethiopia

Sudan seized a shipment of weapons at Khartoum airport arriving from neighbouring Ethiopia, AFP reports.

The weapons arrived on an Ethiopian Airlines passenger flight prompting an immediate investigation on suspicion the arms were destined for use in “crimes against the state”.

Authorities were informed of “the arrival of a weapons shipment from Addis Ababa on an Ethiopian Airlines flight” into Sudan, the report said.

“It was immediately confiscated by customs authorities,” the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) said.

Officials say that the weapons had originally been sent from Russia to Ethiopia in May 2019 and were held by authorities there for two years.

“Without prior warning, authorities in Addis Ababa allowed for its shipping into Khartoum on a passenger flight,” the report added.

Sudan’s interior ministry said on Monday that the shipment had turned out to be part of a legal cargo imported by a licensed arms trader.

Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia have been running high because of a spill over of the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and Ethiopia’s construction of a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile.

Earlier today, Sudan summoned Ethiopia’s ambassador to Khartoum after 29 bodies were found on the banks of a river which forms the border between the two states.

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