Crises in Sudan and Ethiopia Worsen as Biden’s top diplomat Begins Africa Visit

NAIROBI, Kenya

A visit to Africa by President Biden’s top diplomat was vexed on Wednesday by a deadly new crackdown on anti-coup protesters in Sudan and a message of defiance from Ethiopia’s embattled leader.

Despite the grand gesture of American support for the continent signaled by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s trip, the developments illustrated the frustrating limits of U.S. diplomacy in a tumultuous region.

On the first full day of his trip, which began in Kenya, Mr. Blinken spotlighted U.S. efforts reverse the military coup that upended Sudan’s fragile transition to democracy last month, and to de-escalate Ethiopia’s burgeoning civil war, which analysts fear could tear apart Africa’s second most populous nation.

But even as Mr. Blinken spoke at a news conference about intensive American efforts to resolve those political and security crises along Kenya’s borders, they flared anew.

Addressing reporters alongside his Kenyan counterpart, Raychelle Omamo, Mr. Blinken reiterated his call for the reinstatement of Sudan’s prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, who was deposed in the Oct. 25 military coup. And he pointed to his diplomatic efforts to pressure Sudan’s military rulers. “I’ve been working the phones,” Mr. Blinken said.

But on the same day, Sudan’s security forces opened fire on protesters who had massed in the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere, killing 10 people and wounding many more, medics said.

Many had been shot “in the head, neck or torso,” the main doctor’s association said in a statement about the violence, the highest toll since the coup. Sudan’s deposed prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, remained under house arrest as did about 100 other senior civilian officials.

On Ethiopia, Mr. Blinken said that the fighting “needs to stop.” He repeated his past calls for all parties to the brutal conflict between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s forces and rebels to enter negotiations without preconditions.

But Mr. Abiy launched a thinly-veiled broadside on Wednesday against Western efforts to resolve the war on Twitter with a message that blamed woes on a “sophisticated narrative war” led by unnamed enemies. These forces were “using disinformation as a pathway for their sinister move,” Mr. Abiy said.

Even as some call for a more aggressive approach, Mr. Blinken did not detail what further steps the United States might take to influence events in either country. But he did warn that there would be consequences for what he called “atrocities” in Ethiopia, although he did not endorse the use of the word “genocide.” “There needs to be accountability, and we are determined there will be,” Mr. Blinken said.

And in Sudan, he stressed that the reinstatement of Mr. Hamdok, who has been leading a transitional government since 2019 when popular protests ousted longtime dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, would be rewarded with aid and support from the U.S. and other nations.

For now, however, Mr. Blinken has little to show for his efforts in a region that is sliding deeper into crisis.