Ethiopia rejects Sudan's strike claims, accuses Khartoum of backing Tigray rebels

Ethiopia on Tuesday rejected Sudanese allegations that its territory was used to launch drone strikes targeting multiple sites in Sudan and instead alleged that Sudan’s army has provided support to Tigray’s main political and paramilitary group.

What happened: In a statement published on Tuesday, Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry described allegations that drones — including one that struck Khartoum International Airport — were launched from its territory as “baseless.”

The ministry said Ethiopia “has exercised restraint and refrained from publicizing the grave violations of its territorial integrity and national security committed by some belligerents in the Sudanese civil war,” including “the extensive use of TPLF [Tigray People’s Liberation Front] mercenaries in the conflict.”

It added that the accusations were being made “at the behest of external patrons seeking to advance their own nefarious agenda” and alleged that Sudan’s army, the Sudanese Armed Forces, had “provided arms and financial support to these mercenaries, thereby facilitating their incursions along Ethiopia’s western frontier.”

Sudanese officials had earlier accused Ethiopia of involvement in drone strikes on its territory in the last 2 months. During a joint press conference in the early hours of Tuesday, Foreign Minister Mohieddin Salem and SAF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Asim Awad Abdelwahab said they had evidence that the drones involved in the attack on Khartoum International Airport on Monday were launched from Bahir Dar Airport in northern Ethiopia. 

Abdelwahab said that the attacks from Bahir Dar Airport began on March 1 and targeted the Sudanese states of White Nile, Blue Nile, North Kordofan and South Kordofan. On March 17, according to the statement, one of the drones was shot down near El-Obeid. It was identified as being “owned by the United Arab Emirates and was used from within Ethiopian territory.”

Al-Monitor has reached out to the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment. 

The military spokesperson further alleged that a separate drone launched from the same Ethiopian facility breached the airspace on May 1, targeting the capital’s airport before being repelled by air defenses.

Foreign Minister Salem said that Sudan had recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia for “consultations” regarding the incidents. 

“What the countries of Ethiopia and the UAE did was a direct aggression against Sudan and … it will not be met with silence,” Abdelwahab said, adding that the SAF is fully prepared to deal with any threat. The remarks were carried by Sudan’s official news agency, SUNA.

Background: Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a brutal conflict since April 2023, when a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, erupted into open war during a stalled transition to civilian rule.

The SAF retook Khartoum in March 2025 after an intense offensive that drove RSF forces out of much of the capital following months of heavy fighting. The government, which had been based in Port Sudan for most of the conflict, began relocating back to Khartoum in January 2026. 

The conflict has increasingly expanded beyond Sudan’s borders, drawing in a range of external actors and regional powers through alleged material support, financial support or the use of neighboring territory.

A February Reuters investigation reported that Ethiopia hosted a covert military facility that may have been used to train fighters for Sudan’s paramilitary RSF. The report said the camp was funded by the UAE, which has long faced accusations of providing financial and military support to the RSF. The UAE denies these allegations.

Know more: Ethiopia’s accusation that parties in Sudan’s war are using TPLF fighters comes amid escalating tensions with the Tigrayan group, alongside an increasingly fraught standoff with Eritrea — a combination raising fears that the Horn of Africa could slide into renewed regional conflict. 

The TPLF is now in an escalating confrontation with Ethiopia’s federal government, centered on a deepening dispute with the Tigray Interim Administration, which was established under the 2022 Pretoria Agreement to govern the region after the 2020-2022 Tigray war. 

In April, the TPLF announced it would restore its pre-war regional administration, effectively sidelining the interim authorities in a move widely seen as undermining the Pretoria peace deal. Clashes have already been reported in 2026 between Tigrayan forces and Ethiopian federal troops.

At the same time, Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of military aggression and backing armed groups inside its territory. Eritrea and Ethiopia’s rapprochement has frayed over the past year, reversing much of the diplomatic progress made after the landmark 2018 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of hostility between the two nations. During Ethiopia’s Tigray war, Eritrean forces fought alongside Ethiopian federal troops but never fully withdrew.

In early February, Ethiopia formally accused Eritrea of military aggression and support for armed groups inside its territory, saying Eritrean forces had occupied parts of the shared border and supplied weapons to militants. Eritrea’s Foreign Ministry described the allegations as “false and fabricated.”