Sudan and Ethiopia close each other’s consulates over drone launch claims no Ethiopian official has answered

On 1 November Sudan lodged a formal complaint against Ethiopia with both the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council, accusing Addis Ababa of allowing the Rapid Support Forces to use Ethiopian territory to launch drone attacks on civilian infrastructure. On 2 November, according to a Sudanese government official speaking to AFP, “Ethiopia declared on November 2 the employees of the Sudanese consulate in Asosa in the Benishangul region persona non grata and gave them 48 hours to leave its territory.” Reuters put the number at six. On 4 November Sudan closed Ethiopia’s consulate in Gedaref and expelled its diplomats; Sudan Tribune reports Ethiopia withdrew three diplomats, and accounts differ on whether this was expulsion or withdrawal. The same Sudanese official said Khartoum had documented “Ethiopia’s support for the RSF militia, including by allowing them to use its land to attack Sudanese cities and civilian infrastructure,” calling the expulsions an escalation.

Two caveats carry the story. Ethiopian authorities did not respond to AFP’s request for comment, and nothing retrieved contains an on-the-record Ethiopian confirmation of the Asosa expulsion; the two wire accounts may draw on the same official pool. Second, the chain running from RSF drones through Ethiopian territory to Emirati supply is Khartoum’s framing, not an independently established fact, and the links should be kept apart. The regional pattern is real enough: Addis Ababa has expelled diplomats from three neighbours in five weeks — ten Eritrean diplomats and the closure of its own Asmara embassy on 1 October, an Egyptian diplomat in October, six Sudanese on 2 November — accusing Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea of backing Tigrayan rebels who launched an offensive in September. Khartoum rejects that.

Across the border from Asosa, residents of Ad-Damazin, the Blue Nile state capital, reported drone strikes through the night of 4 November, according to AFP. On 3 November the Council on Foreign Relations tracker, citing Sudans Post, reported that the RSF and allied militias had “reportedly captured the Sali military base, continuing its offensive campaign in the Blue Nile region of southeast Sudan” — a single outlet relayed by an aggregator. On 5 November Radio Tamazuj reported that TASIS forces, the RSF’s political affiliate, claim control of military positions in Blue Nile. That is a claim by a party, not a confirmed event. No independent verification of any specific capture appeared in the window.

Assessment: Both governments have reasons to want this quarrel visible. Addis Ababa is fighting a Tigray front it blames on a Sudanese-Egyptian-Eritrean axis, and consular expulsions are the cheapest available signal. Khartoum has spent eighteen months trying to internationalise the question of who supplies the RSF, and an Ethiopian launch-site allegation at the Security Council extends that campaign to a state with no Gulf protection. Until an Ethiopian foreign ministry statement exists, treat the rupture itself as better established than its stated cause. The thing to watch is Blue Nile: overnight strikes on Ad-Damazin plus TASIS claims plus the UN envoy’s warning make a coherent southeastern front, and no geolocated evidence for it.