On Monday, drones struck Khartoum’s international airport, the first attack on the capital in months, shattering a fragile return to normalcy. Just one week prior, the airport had received its first international arrival since the civil war began, a Kuwait Airways flight bringing back 300 Sudanese citizens.
Sudan’s military said it had conclusive evidence the drones were launched from Bahir Dar airport in Ethiopia and constituted what it referred to as “direct aggression.” Khartoum recalled its ambassador to Addis Ababa. Ethiopia denied everything, calling the accusations “baseless” and made “at the behest of external patrons” — a likely reference to Egypt, which backs Sudan’s army and is locked in an existential dispute with Addis Ababa over the Nile water rights.
Egypt’s foreign ministry in turn, described attacks launched from “the territory of a neighbouring country” as a flagrant violation of Sudanese sovereignty — language that condemned Ethiopia without triggering a formal diplomatic rupture. Saudi Arabia called on “neighbouring countries of Sudan” to respect Sudan’s sovereignty and prohibit the use of their territory “as a launchpad for such attacks,” a formulation that managed simultaneously to condemn Ethiopia, and gesture toward its own backing of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
