Show caption: Ethiopians from communities displaced by the conflict in the…
Neighbours accuse each other of aiding enemies
The National
Cairo
November 05, 2026
Ethiopia has ordered six Sudanese diplomats to leave the country this week, according to a senior Ethiopian official, deepening a rift over allegations of supporting one another's rivals.
Sudan's military-backed government accuses Ethiopia of supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in a war that broke out in April 2023. Ethiopia accuses Sudan, along with Egypt and Eritrea, of backing rebels in its northern Tigray region.
The allegations, which both sides deny, have raised fears that the two wars could bleed into each other, spawning a broader conflict in the Horn of Africa region.
On Sunday, Sudan’s SAF-aligned government said it had lodged a complaint against Ethiopia with the UN Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, accusing Addis Ababa of allowing the RSF to use its territory to launch suicide drones against civilian infrastructure in Sudan.
The latest expulsions involved six staff members of the Sudanese consulate in the border town of Assosa. They were ordered to leave within 48 hours, the senior Ethiopian official told Reuters without providing a reason for the decision.
Sudan responded a day later by closing the Ethiopian consulate in the city of Qadaref in the country's south-east, according to online news sites linked to the military-aligned government. It is not known how many staff members were in the consulate.
Addis Ababa denies it supports the RSF in Sudan's civil war. The conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, according to UN figures, and created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises since it erupted in April 2023.
Ethiopia has accused Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea of supporting Tigrayan rebels who launched an offensive against government forces in September. All three countries have denied this.
Show caption: Ethiopian refugees and their families rest at the Al Huda pr…
Last month, Egypt and Ethiopia expelled diplomats in a tit-for-tat row that marked a new escalation in their already tense relations over a Nile dam built by Ethiopia that Egypt says will probably reduce its share of the river's water.
Ethiopia initiated the row when its Foreign Ministry ordered a senior Egyptian diplomat, Ahmed Moharam Ahmed Soliman, to leave Ethiopia within 48 hours. It gave no reason for its action.
Egypt responded by expelling a senior member of Ethiopia's diplomatic mission in Cairo, also giving him two days to leave. It did not name the diplomat, but said he was the embassy's counsellor.
The expulsions came one day after Ethiopia ordered the closure of its embassy in Eritrea, a close ally of both Egypt and Sudan, and declared 10 Eritrean diplomats persona non grata. That prompted Eritrea to sever diplomatic ties with its neighbour after overnight blasts heard in Addis Ababa sparked fears that renewed conflict in northern Ethiopia might be spreading.
Updated:
November 05, 2026, 1:44 PM
Source: The National
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