Hours after the drone attacks on Khartoum Airport on Tuesday morning, Cairo issued a statement to denounce the attacks “in the firmest possible language”.
“This is an outright violation of Sudan’s sovereignty and a direct attack on the safety of its civilian installations,” a statement issued in Cairo on Tuesday said.
“The attack imposes unequivocal harm on the interests and rights of the Sudanese people, and it poses serious threats of an alarming escalation that could further complicate the very disturbing humanitarian and security situation in the country,” the statement read.
It added that the escalation would only hamper the already daunting task of reaching and implementing a humanitarian truce in the country.
The Egyptian statement stopped short of naming Ethiopia for facilitating the launch of the drones against Khartoum Airport. Instead, it expressed concern and dismay at “the increased rate of strikes that are said to be [targeting Sudan] from a neighbouring country.”
“This can only widen the scope of the conflict and its regional implications and abort the US/Quad-led attempts to reach a final ceasefire and initiate a Sudanese political process away from foreign intervention,” the statement said.
Sudan has accused Ethiopia of being behind the attacks since the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that are fighting against the government in Sudan have been supported by Ethiopia and other regional allies since the beginning of the civil conflict in the country in mid-April 2023.
However, while Sudan has openly accused both Ethiopia and the UAE of involvement in the strikes, Egypt has refrained from including the UAE in any public statements.
In a press conference held on Tuesday, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mohieddin Salem said his country had “conclusive evidence” of foreign, particularly Ethiopian, intervention in facilitating the drone attacks.
The drones, he said, were launched from Ethiopia, “which should be a sisterly country”.
The drone attacks were partially intercepted by Sudanese air defences. They brought about a brief hold in aviation at the airport, but this was later resumed.
According to two Egyptian government sources who spoke on Tuesday afternoon on condition of anonymity, Egypt is “reaching out to Sudan” in an act of “political, humanitarian, and other forms of solidarity.”
Neither sources agreed to give details or to qualify what the “other forms of solidarity” were. However, one said that Egypt “sees Sudan as a crucial national security issue and will not hesitate to do whatever it has to do in line with the special nature of the relations it has with Sudan.”
Since the beginning of the civil conflict in Sudan, Egypt has tried to facilitate a peaceful and quick resolution, both at the bilateral level and through several sub-regional, regional, and international mechanisms, including the Quad group of countries that brings it together with the US, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Informed Egyptian diplomatic sources have repeatedly accused the RSF of failing to engage positively with the initiatives despite what they said was the “positive outlook” of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the government in Sudan, on the mediation efforts.
Prior to the conflict that started in the spring of 2023, the SAF and RSF had been allies after the ouster of the regime of former Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir in April 2019. In the analysis of the Egyptian sources, it was foreign intervention that caused a rift between the two, prompting the RSF to start its campaign against the SAF.
Egyptian officials have said that Egypt’s support for the SAF is compatible with its established position of working with state institutions.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Egyptian government sources said that as far as Cairo is concerned the Ethiopian attempt to further ignite an already difficult conflict in Sudan is not separable from Ethiopian acts of antagonism against Egypt, especially its lack of cooperation on reaching an agreement on the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
“Ethiopia is picking a fight in Sudan, and we will decide how we will react,” the second source said.
According to Hani Al-Assar, executive director of the National Center for Studies, who follows developments in Sudan, “Ethiopia knows that at the end of the day Sudan is a national security interest of Egypt. Consequently, an attack on Sudan, whether announced or otherwise, is perceived in Egypt as an attack on its national security interests.”
Al-Assar said that Egypt has long tried to engage Ethiopia through political and diplomatic channels on all issues of bilateral and regional interest. “However, if Ethiopia insists on going the extra mile in its antagonistic policies, it will be up to Egypt to decide its next move,” he said.
The two government sources who spoke on Tuesday afternoon said that senior Egyptian officials have been on the phone with counterparts in Khartoum and other regional and international capitals in order to consider ways to contain the conflict and put pressure on regional players who are acting as “spoilers” to attempts to bring peace to Sudan.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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