Arms flown to Sudan from Ethiopia were legal, says ministry

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s interior ministry said on Monday that more than 70 boxes of weapons seized by authorities had turned out to be part of a legal cargo imported by a licensed arms trader.

Sudanese authorities had confiscated the weapons after they arrived by air from neighbouring Ethiopia on suspicion that were destined for use in “crimes against the state”, state news agency SUNA reported.

The boxes included night-vision goggles and arrived on an Ethiopian Airlines commercial flight on Saturday night, SUNA reported.

On Monday, Sudan’s interior ministry said the shipment, which included 290 rifles and belonged to a licensed trader, Wael Shams Eldin, had been checked and found to be legitimate.

Ethiopian Airlines said the weapons were hunting guns that were part of a verified shipment.

Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia have been running high due to a spillover of the conflict https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-conflict-sudan-analysis-int-idUSKBN28S1X1 in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and Ethiopia’s construction of a giant hydropower dam https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopias-giant-nile-dam-2021-07-08 on the Blue Nile.

The Tigray conflict has sent tens of thousands of refugees into eastern Sudan and triggered military skirmishes in an area of contested farmland along the border between the two countries.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz and Dawit Endeshaw; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Peter Cooney and Andrew Heavens)