In Ethiopia, hundreds of people have started to flee to Sudan following Saturday's fighting, when clashes in Tigray pitted federal forces against rebels from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Both sides accuse each other of seeking to trigger a new conflict.
Hundreds of Ethiopians from the northern Tigray region have crossed into neighbouring Sudan over the past two days, fleeing fighting near the border, Sudanese security and medical sources told French news agency AFP.
The influx comes as Sudan itself remains engulfed in a brutal war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which erupted in April 2023.
This violence also comes amid strained relations between Ethiopia and Sudan.
In May, Ethiopia accused the Sudanese army of backing TPLF-linked "mercenaries", while Sudan accused Ethiopia of allowing drone attacks to be launched from its territory in coordination with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), accused of being the primary backer of the RSF though it denies the accusations.
Heavy artillery and drones
A member of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) said clashes involving heavy artillery and drones between the Ethiopian army and Tigray rebels broke out in the western Tigray area of Shererina, near the Sudanese border, early on Saturday and continued until around 5pm (1500 GMT).
A Sudanese security source in the border town of Hamdayet said arrivals from Tigray included wounded fighters.
A medical source at a border health centre said the injured received first aid before being transferred to al-Hashaba, 15 kilometres inside Sudan and home to thousands displaced by the 2020-2022 war between the Ethiopian army and Tigray rebels.
The security source said al-Hashaba, also known as Village 8, serves as an "administrative hub" for Army 70, a TPLF-affiliated armed unit whose fighters fled to Sudan during the Tigray war and later fought alongside the Sudanese army against the RSF.
Residents on the Sudanese side of the border reported hearing explosions and sustained gunfire throughout the fighting.
A witness in Wad al-Hulaywah, about 40 kilometres from the frontier, said three powerful explosions were heard on Saturday morning.
"At around 4:30 pm local time, I could still hear heavy gunfire," the witness told AFP, adding that residents of nearby al-Qudaymah village had fled across the Setit River.
Another witness in Hamdayet said explosions were audible throughout Saturday and that he "saw aircraft flying southwest of" the town.
AFP was unable to independently verify the accounts.
A disunited country
On Saturday, the TPLF accused Ethiopia's federal government of launching what it described as a "large-scale infantry offensive", a claim the authorities did not immediately address.
AFP could not independently verify the TPLF's claims or identify the forces involved in the fighting in Shererina.
Fighting has been taking place in the contested area of western Tigray, which is controlled by nationalists from the neighbouring Amhara region.
Federal troops and Tigrayan forces have massed along northern Tigray's border for months, fuelling fears of renewed conflict between the two sides less than four years after a war that killed at least 600,000 people, according to the African Union.
(with AFP)
