The Al Fushqa or Al Fashaga district (, ) also known as the Al Fashaga triangle is a

disputed area A territorial dispute or boundary dispute is a disagreement over the possession or control of territories (land, water or airspace) between two or more political entities. Context and definitions Territorial disputes are often related to the pos ...

between

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

and

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

, specifically Al Qadarif and Amhara. The region is a fertile

agricultural land Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other organism, forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous ...

and its capital is

Showak Showak (also Ash Showak or el Showak) (), is the capital of the Al Fushqa District located on the Atbarah River in eastern Gedarif State, Sudan, at an altitude of above sea level. It lies at a distance of to the northeast of Khartoum. Showak ...

History

Al Fashaga is located on the

Ethiopia–Sudan border The Ethiopia–Sudan border (; ) is a disputed border between the Ethiopia, Federal Republic of Ethiopia and the Sudan, Republic of the Sudan since the 19th century.Ullendorff, Edward. "The Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902." ''Bulletin of the Scho ...

, and is claimed by both Sudan and Ethiopia. The region had historically been administered by the

Ethiopian Empire The Ethiopian Empire, historically known as Abyssinia or simply Ethiopia, was a sovereign state that encompassed the present-day territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It existed from the establishment of the Solomonic dynasty by Yekuno Amlak a ...

. However, in 1902, Emperor

Menelik II Menelik II ( ; horse name Aba Dagnew (Amharic: አባ ዳኘው ''abba daññäw''); 17 August 1844 – 12 December 1913), baptised as Sahle Maryam (ሣህለ ማርያም ''sahlä maryam'') was king of Shewa from 1866 to 1889 and Emperor of Et ...

ceded the region to the British, who incorporated it into

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...

. Ethiopia never signed a treaty with Sudan over the territory, because the government argued that the region came under Ethiopian control when Sudan was freed in 1956. In the mid 1990s,

Ethiopians Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global Ethiopian diaspora, diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute #Ethnicity, several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighbor ...

, mostly from the

Amhara people Amharas (; ) are a Ethiopian Semitic languages, Semitic-speaking ethnic group indigenous to Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, traditionally inhabiting parts of the northwest Ethiopian Highlands, Highlands of Ethiopia, particularly the Amhara Reg ...

, moved into the Al Fashaga region to begin farming due to the high fertility of the land. Under Egyptian and Ethiopian pressure, the

Sudanese Armed Forces The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF; ) are the military forces of the Republic of the Sudan. The force strength has been estimated at personnel in 2011 (by IISS), 200,000 personnel before the current war in Sudan broke out in 2023 (by the CIA), and ...

withdrew from region in 1995 as well as the

Halaib Triangle The Halaib Triangle is an area of land measuring located on the Northeast African coast of the Red Sea. The area, which takes its name from the town of Halaib, is created by the difference in the Egypt–Sudan border between the "political boun ...

following an

assassination attempt This is a list of survivors of assassination attempts. For successful assassination attempts, see List of assassinations. Non-heads of state Heads of state and government Gallery File:Arrestation Gregori.jpg, Arrest of Louis Gregori, th ...

against Egyptian president

Hosni Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 and the 41st Prime Minister of Egypt, prime minister from 1981 to ...

in Ethiopia. Sudanese President

Omar al-Bashir Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (born 1 January 1944) is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as Head of state of Sudan, Sudan's head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in 2019 Sudanese c ...

was accused of supporting the

Egyptian Islamic Jihad The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ; ), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad () and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and then the Jihad Group, or the Jihad Organization, was an Egyptian Islamist group active ...

group behind the attempt. Under a compromise reached in 2008, Ethiopian farmers cultivated the land while Sudan retained administrative control of it. This compromise ended in November 2020, when the Tigray War began and Sudan expelled Ethiopian farmers, resulting in border clashes between the two countries. On 2 December, the Sudanese Armed Forces occupied the

Khor Yabis Khor (also ''Hurru'', ''Kharu'') is the second, later name used by ancient Egyptians after using Retjenu in designating the wider Syrian region, where speakers of Canaanite languages lived. It was long an outpost of ancient Egypt and is explicitl ...

area, controlled by Ethiopia for 25 years, expelling Ethiopian militants without a fight. During the

2023 Sudan conflict 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies ...

, the Sudanese government claimed to have repelled an Ethiopian incursion on the Al Fashaga region on 19 April. The Ethiopian Prime Minister,

Abiy Ahmed Abiy Ahmed Ali (; ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who is the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018 and the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He rose through the ranks of government via the Information Networ ...

, denied any assault ever took place.

References

Territorial disputes of Ethiopia Territorial disputes of Sudan Ethiopia–Sudan border Al Qadarif State {{Ethiopia-geo-stub