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Sudanese Delegation in Cairo to Discuss Border Dispute with Ethiopia

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met Thursday with a Sudanese delegation in Cairo (Egyptian Presidency)
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met Thursday with a Sudanese delegation in Cairo (Egyptian Presidency)
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Sudanese Delegation in Cairo to Discuss Border Dispute with Ethiopia

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met Thursday with a Sudanese delegation in Cairo (Egyptian Presidency)
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met Thursday with a Sudanese delegation in Cairo (Egyptian Presidency)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi received Thursday a Sudanese delegation in Cairo to discuss the recent border tensions between Khartoum and Addis Ababa, in addition to the latest regional developments, especially the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Sisi held talks with members of the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) Lt-General Shamsedeen Kabashi and his accompanying delegation, including Sudanese Minister of Culture and Information Fisal Mohammed Salih, Chief of General Intelligence Gamal Abdel Meguid, and Secretary-General of the council Mohamed Youssef.

The talks tackled the latest developments concerning the mounting tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan over the disputed eastern border region of Al-Fashqa.

Sisi said that Egypt is looking forward to continuing cooperation and coordination with Sudan in various areas, given the long-standing ties and common interests between the two countries.

For his part, Kabashi stressed the distinguished and historical relations binding between Cairo and Khartoum, hailing Egypt's sustained support for Sudan during the current transitional period.

The delegation also discussed with Sisi the GERD issue and the necessity of coordinating efforts and stances to achieve the interests of both countries.

The visit comes after border tension between the two countries escalated during the conflict in the Tigray region.

Ethiopian forces and militias attacked Sudanese forces inside their territory, killing three individuals and a high-ranking officer.

The Sudanese army redeployed within its territory and regained control over more than 80 percent of the areas that had been witnessing an Ethiopian presence for many years.

The negotiations to demarcate the border between Sudan and Ethiopia last December failed to reach an agreement.

After arriving in Khartoum Thursday, Salih said the delegation briefed Sisi on the recent developments on the Sudanese-Ethiopian borders, pointing out that the visit is a part of an integrated program for visiting the neighboring and sisterly countries to brief them on the reality of the developments of the situations in the region.

He also said it comes as part of the political and diplomatic efforts being exerted by the government to inform the leaders and the governments on Sudan’s position concerning the situations on the Sudanese-Ethiopian borders.

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Arab World

At Syria Cemetery, People Search for Missing Loved Ones

File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
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At Syria Cemetery, People Search for Missing Loved Ones

File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)

Weeping, Fairuz Shalish grasps the red earth at an unmarked grave in Syria that she believes may hold her son, one of tens of thousands of people who vanished under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

Thousands poured out of the country's web of prisons in the final days of Assad's rule and after the opposition factions toppled him on December 8.

But as the weeks go by, many families are still desperately searching for news of relatives who were detained or went missing during years of his iron-fisted rule.

Shalish, 59, has not seen her 27-year-old son Mohammed since military security personnel stormed their home near Homs around dawn in early November, just weeks before Assad's ouster.

"I was screaming," she said at the Tal al-Naser cemetery near Homs.

"They shot him in the leg, he fell on the ground and two of them came and opened fire" repeatedly before taking him away, she said, a foul smell lingering in the crisp winter air.

"He has four young children... he has a son who is two," she told AFP.

"I tell him that (his father) will be back tomorrow."

The fate of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria's conflict, which started in 2011 when Assad's forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.

Arbitrary arrests, violence and torture were all part of a paranoid state killing machine that crushed any hint of dissent.

"There were people who accused (Mohammed) of being in contact with revolutionaries in the north," Shalish said.

Her other son, detained at the same time, was later released, but she was told unofficially that Mohammed had died, without receiving any formal notification.

'Need to be certain'

At the sprawling cemetery, pieces of construction blocks serve as makeshift headstones in the dirt where Shalish sits.

At an earlier visit, she learnt that an individual buried there had the same date of death as her son.

But she has been unable to obtain authorization to exhume the body, which was identified only by a code.

"If I have to go to the end of the Earth, I will go. I need to see if it's my son or not," she said.

"I need to be certain, so my heart can be at rest."

Adnan Deeb, known as Abu Sham, who is in charge of burials at the Tal al-Naser cemetery, sorts through ledgers containing the names of people who are interred there, leafing through worn, handwritten pages of records, organized by date.

He said that after the uprising started, authorities began bringing bodies from the military hospital to be buried at the cemetery.

"Some had codes, while others were identified by name," said the towering man in a long black robe, his head wrapped in a traditional keffiyeh.

"Sometimes we'd get 10, sometimes five... They'd bring them in ambulances or in pick-ups or military vehicles," he said, adding that some bore signs of torture.

"It was an atrocious sight. Atrocious. But we had no choice but to do our job," he added.

Still looking

Deeb estimated several thousand former detainees could be buried at the cemetery.

He expressed hope that the military hospital's computer systems would eventually reveal the names of the bodies identified only by codes.

People need to "know where their children are buried", Deeb said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said determining the fate of the missing will be a massive task likely to take years.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, has said more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.

Rafic al-Mohbani, 46, from Homs, has been searching for answers for more than a decade.

His eyes flash with rage as he recounts how his brother Raef and brother-in-law Hassan Hammadi disappeared on their way home from work in June 2013.

"They told us they were at the military security branch in Homs. We went and asked, and they said they transferred them to Damascus. After that, we don't know what happened," he said.

"We paid several sums of money to several people" secretly, he said.

"We got a lawyer, and still couldn't find out anything."

After prisoners began streaming out of Assad's jails last month, "we posted the photos again, we've been looking at cemeteries and hospitals", Mohbani said.

He also visited Tal al-Naser cemetery, with no success.

But the gaunt man, who works as a mechanic, said he still had hope of learning the two men's fate.

"God willing, justice will prevail for us and everyone in Syria."