Sudan and Ethiopia Shut Each Other's Consulates as Drone War Accusations Deepen

NAIROBI, Sudan and Ethiopia traded tit-for-tat consulate closures this week, trading accusations that each is arming the other's enemies in what analysts warn could pull two already war-scarred countries into a broader collision across the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia moved first. According to a senior Ethiopian official cited by Reuters, Addis Ababa declared the six staff of Sudan's consulate in Assosa, a town in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, hard against the Sudanese border, persona non grata on November 2 and gave them 48 hours to leave. Sudan responded within a day, closing Ethiopia's consulate in the eastern city of Gedaref and ordering its diplomats out in kind, two Sudanese government officials told AFP.

The immediate trigger, Khartoum says, is the drone war. Sudan's army-aligned government, locked in a civil conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since 2023, told reporters it had documented RSF drone strikes launched from Ethiopian soil against civilian power infrastructure. Workers were still assessing damage at the Al-Markhiyat power station north of Omdurman as late as October 28, following one such reported strike, according to photographs reviewed by news agencies on the ground. A Sudanese government official told AFP the expulsions were an "escalation" after Sudan documented "Ethiopia's support for the RSF militia, including by allowing them to use its land to attack Sudanese cities and civilian infrastructure."

Addis Ababa denies it supports the RSF. Its own complaint runs in the opposite direction: Ethiopia has accused Sudan, along with Egypt and Eritrea, of backing Tigrayan rebels who launched a fresh offensive against Ethiopian government forces in September, as reported by The National News.

This is not an isolated dispute between two neighbours. It is the latest link in a chain of diplomatic ruptures radiating outward from Ethiopia. As reported by Al Jazeera, the Assosa expulsions followed Ethiopia's decision to expel 10 Eritrean diplomats on October 1 and close its own embassy in Asmara, a move that prompted Eritrea to sever diplomatic relations entirely. Ethiopia also expelled an Egyptian diplomat last month, amid a long-running standoff over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, which Cairo says will cut its water supply.

Sudan had already signalled it was taking the matter beyond the bilateral channel. Its government told reporters it lodged formal complaints against Ethiopia with both the United Nations Security Council and the African Union's Peace and Security Council on Sunday, accusing Addis Ababa of allowing its territory to be used as a staging ground for attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Amjad Farid, political and foreign affairs adviser to Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council, struck a careful public tone. "Nevertheless, it is making every possible effort to avoid an open war with Ethiopia," he said, in remarks carried by Reuters.

That careful framing reflects the stakes. Both countries are already fighting internal wars, Ethiopia through the resumption of Tigrayan hostilities in the north, Sudan through a civil conflict that has produced one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Analysts cited by Modern Diplomacy warn that the cross-border accusations of proxy support, if they harden, risk merging two separate conflicts into one regional conflagration.

European Union foreign policy officials have not yet commented publicly on the expulsions. The African Union, which brokered the 2022 Pretoria agreement that briefly ended the Tigray war, faces renewed pressure to bring both governments back to a diplomatic table before the consulate closures become something harder to reverse.

Sources cited:
- Reuters (via Yahoo News) (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ethiopia-expels-sudanese-diplomats-fresh-114327930.html)
- AFP (via Uganda Broadcasting Corporation) (https://ubc.go.ug/2026/11/05/ethiopia-sudan-expel-diplomats-after-attacks-claim-sudan-govt-officials)
- Al Jazeera (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/4/sudan-ethiopia-order-tit-for-tat-diplomatic-expulsions)
- The National News (https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/05/sudan-and-ethiopia-in-tit-for-tat-expulsions-of-diplomats-as-tensions-rise/)
- Modern Diplomacy (https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2026/11/05/ethiopia-and-sudan-expel-diplomats-as-rivalry-threatens-to-widen-horn-of-africa-conflicts/)