Africa — 2026-05-05

Sudan Recalls Ambassador to Ethiopia Over Drone Strikes on Khartoum Airport

Sudan recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia for consultations on Tuesday after drone strikes hit Khartoum International Airport and military sites in the capital on Monday, according to Xinhua. Foreign Minister Mohi El-Din Salem said the drones were launched from Ethiopia's Bahir Dar Airport and declared Sudan "ready to enter into an open confrontation with Ethiopia." Armed Forces spokesperson Asim Awad Abdelwahab separately stated the military would "respond twice as hard," citing "confirmed information" of Ethiopian participation; Sudan Tribune also reported Sudanese accusations of UAE involvement in the strikes. Authorities closed Khartoum airport for 72 hours, and Sudan's Ministry of Culture and Information press office reported no casualties or confirmed damage.

Analysis
Khartoum's ambassador recall and Foreign Minister Salem's declaration of readiness for 'open confrontation', corroborated across Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, and Xinhua, signal Sudan is treating Monday's drone strikes as a casus belli rather than an incident to manage quietly. Sudan Tribune's unconfirmed accusation of UAE involvement would, if substantiated, transform this from a bilateral Ethiopia dispute into a proxy conflict implicating Gulf actors already entangled in Sudan's civil war. The SAF's active war against the RSF constrains both capacity and appetite for simultaneous external escalation, making further punitive action against Ethiopia within the next 90 days genuinely uncertain. The confrontational declarations may instead be calibrated primarily for domestic audiences and regional leverage.

5 sources