Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan issue joint declaration in rebuke to Ethiopia

Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan have called for political and peaceful solutions to the region’s escalating conflicts, issuing a joint declaration that pushes back against several Ethiopian policies, Al Jazeera reported.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan signed the El Alamein declaration on Sunday after meeting in Egypt’s New Alamein City.

The declaration backed Sudan’s military-led government and called for a Sudanese-led political process to end the civil war that has raged since April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

It said control of the Red Sea should remain with coastal states, a direct response to landlocked Ethiopia’s pursuit of sovereign sea access and a naval presence. Egypt and Sudan also warned against “unilateral measures” on the Nile, an apparent rebuke over Ethiopia’s filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The summit came as fighting escalated in Ethiopia, where federal forces retook the city of Mekelle on Sunday after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front said it had “temporarily moved out of” the regional capital.