ADDIS ABABA/NEW YORK — The United Nations Security Council has issued a stark warning that the civil war in Sudan is no longer a localized conflict but an internationalized crisis that is rapidly spilling over its borders, with Ethiopia now directly in the path of the contagion. According to UN Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari, the war has shifted toward Sudan’s Kordofan region, marked by the Rapid Support Forces capturing the town of Babanusa and the Heglig oil field earlier this month. This expansion is being fueled by what independent analysts describe as a “saturation of arms” and a complex network of cross-border financial and political interests that threaten to ignite new wars in already fragile neighboring states.
The situation has taken an even more ominous turn following reports that the conflict is physically taking root within Ethiopian territory. Intelligence sources cited by Al Jazeera Arabic and the Addis Standard indicate that the Sudanese government is preparing for a new military front in its eastern region in response to allegations that Ethiopia has allowed the RSF to establish a massive training camp near the Blue Nile border. This facility, reportedly located in the Menqi and Al-Ahmar areas of the Benishangul-Gumuz region, is said to host over 10,000 fighters. These forces allegedly include a mix of foreign recruits, including mercenaries from South Sudan and Latin American countries such as Colombia, all operating under the supervision of Ethiopian military officials and foreign officers.
This development places a massive paramilitary presence in close proximity to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a site of immense strategic importance. Reports suggest that Ethiopian authorities are coordinating with the RSF to facilitate supply lines, including the transport of combat vehicles, artillery systems, and electronic jamming devices through Assosa. This coordination reportedly extends to a tripartite intelligence alignment between the Ethiopian army, the RSF, and the People’s Army under Joseph Tuka. For a region already reeling from the devastating and ongoing Amhara crisis, the arrival of Sudan’s war represents a potential “disaster on top of disaster.” The Ethiopian federal government, already struggling to contain internal insurgencies and ethnic tensions in the Amhara and Oromia regions, now faces the prospect of being dragged into a multi-state conventional war that could collapse the country’s remaining stability.
UN officials have highlighted the “staggering” humanitarian consequences of this escalation, noting that the Kordofan and Darfur regions are witnessing mass killings, sexual violence, and the deliberate blocking of aid. The use of advanced weaponry, including indiscriminate drone strikes on hospitals and schools, has signaled a transformation of the conflict into a high-intensity war that the regional infrastructure is unprepared to handle. As peacekeepers are killed and health services reach the point of collapse, the Security Council is being urged to take immediate, coordinated action. Experts warn that without an expanded arms embargo and a halt to the foreign networks enabling the RSF, the “spillover” into Ethiopia will not just be a border skirmish, but the beginning of a wider Horn of Africa conflagration that could take decades to extinguish.
