Abuzerham Defeallah is a mechanic from Sudan. He always comes to Kurmuk, a border town between Ethiopia’s Benishangul Gumuz and Sudan’s Blue Nile states to buy goods and services such as vegetables, soap, and other materials. Despite the currency difference, the two peoples buy and sell goods and services without any difficulty using the respective currencies of the two countries.
The peoples of Ethiopia and Sudan have brotherly relations. “We love each other and consider both countries as our home. Whenever Ethiopians in the border feel ill, they can get treatment and drugs from Sudanese health centers and pharmacies and vice-versa,” he said.
According to him, Sudanese and Ethiopian people are like siblings who have the same mother but different fathers. “I love Ethiopia and its people. I come to Kurmuk to enjoy and relax when I feel depressed.”
Abuzerham sees himself as a mechanic who serves both countries. Ethiopia and Sudan have a long historical relationship. There are also age-old ties between the two peoples, who have lived in one another’s country over the years, he said.
As both countries share a very long border, they have a strong people-to-people relationship. A significant number of Ethiopians have taken up residence in Sudan and Ethiopia is also home to a significant number of Sudanese people.
Kibrom Ayele is a resident of Kurmuk in the Ethiopian side. He lives and has been working in the area as a pharmacist for six years. Talking about the uniqueness of life in the border area, he said that it is a place where people of the two countries live together and coexist peacefully.
People’s focus is only on improving their lives through hard work. The cooperation of people in social and other activities is encouraging on both sides. “We have strong cultural, social, and other ties. There is also a marriage bond between the two countries,” he said.
The overall cooperation of the two brotherly peoples is encouraging and could be a lesson for others. Recently, Benishangul-Gumuz State President Ashadli Hassen told The Ethiopian Herald that the State has been closely working with Blue Nile (state) of the Republic of Sudan by setting a common agenda. In the past two decades, the commitment by the political leadership of Sudan and Ethiopia has achieved several important gains.
These gains will certainly have an impact on trade relations, encouraging an increase in the diversity and quantity of commercial products. The two countries’ strong cooperation is helping to control the smuggling of gold and fiscal fraud through joint administration links, capacity building and exchanges of information.
Over the last twenty years, the Ethiopian government has limited the amount of money to be possessed by individuals who engage in border trades to 2,000 Birr. This has significantly affected the communities’ business activities. The financial limit and the poor infrastructure in the border areas have severely affected the import-export trade between the two states in the border areas of the two countries.
There is an asphalt road extending as far as Kurmuk, a city in the border area. But there are no such roads on the side of Sudan’s Blue Nile State.
In order to address infrastructural problems, one of the major impediments holding back realization of regional integration, the two countries have been jointly working on the road network-building projects. The Ethiopian side of the road connecting the Benishangul Region’s Kurmuk to Sudan’s Kurmuk-Demazen is complete and the Sudanese side is under construction.
The Ethiopian Herald October 31, 2019
BY TSEGAYE TILAHUN
