Sudan will summon back its ambassador to Ethiopia immediately for consultations following the killing of seven Sudanese soldiers being held captive by its’ neighbour’s military, the foreign ministry has said.
In a statement on Monday, the ministry said it would also summon the Ethiopian ambassador to Khartoum on Monday to directly condemn the killing.
On Sunday, Khartoum had accused Addis Ababa of executing seven Sudanese soldiers and a civilian who had reportedly been captured on Sudanese territory on June 22 and taken into Ethiopia where they were killed.
An earlier statement from the Sudanese military also accused Ethiopian troops of displaying the bodies of those executed to the public and promised that there would be “an appropriate response”.
In a statement on Monday, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said the facts of the incident were misrepresented and that the deaths were a result of a skirmish between Sudanese soldiers, who they said had staged an incursion into Ethiopian land, and a local militia.
The incident would be investigated, it said.
Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia have run high in recent years because of a spillover of the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and Ethiopia’s construction of a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile.
Tens of thousands of refugees have fled into eastern Sudan, and there have been military skirmishes in an area of contested farmland along the border between Sudan and Ethiopia.
