This week COVID-19 vaccines touchdown Khartoum as UN news announced the arrival of the first batch of vaccine to Khartoum this week. The batch comprised around 800,000 AstraZeneca shots, rendering Sudan the first African country in and the Middle East to receive the vaccine.

Meanwhile The Emergency and Epidemic Control Department at the Ministry of Health (DEECD) announced new 260 covid-19 infected cases recorded; while Khartoum state marked the highest rates of infections in the country.

Tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan in al-Fashga along the borders are ongoing, as the Sudanese army took over nearly all of land occupied by the Ethiopians; however, intense clashes continue as one Ethiopian settlement in the Sudanese territory still remains to be freed.

While in a press conference held this week in Cairo during her latest visit to Egypt, the foreign minister, Mariam al-Sadig, threw what was deemed a controversial statement concerning potential exploitation of the Sudanese land by neighbouring countries – which observers thought undermining to sovereignty. Spokesperson at the foreign office had issued a statement explaining that the minister’s statements were deliberately taken out of context.

TSC

This week the Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, al-Burhan, flew to Uganda to attend the inauguration of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni’s sixth term in office. The two head of states discussed means of bolstering trade and economic ties between the two sisterly countries. On his way back to Khartoum, Al-Burhan met at Juba airport with Abdulaziz al-Hilo, head of SPLM-North. A meeting thought to be brokered by the South-Sudanese president, Salva-kir Miar Diit.

In the framework of the recent political accommodation following the Juba peace deal, members to the Sovereignty Council, Ms. Aisha Musa and Dr. Siddig Tawir, had met with Minni Arku Minnawi, leader of Sudan Liberation Army, along with SLA’s chief of staff and top army brass, to welcome them into the new government structures.