Sudan files UN complaint against Egypt

Sudan has recently lodged a complaint to the UN Security Council, after Egypt held elections on territory disputed between the two countries, Sudan's foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour has said.

The Halayeb triangle, which lies on the border of Egypt and Sudan near the Red Sea, has long been a contentious subject between Egypt and Sudan, after both countries claimed sovereignty over the area following Sudanese independence in 1956.

"There are three ways to resolve the Halayeb conflict: either through mutual cooperation, international resolutions or mediation," Ghandour said, according to al-Araby al-Jadeed's Sudan correspondent.

The land dispute is a result of the discrepancy in the demarcation of a political boundary set in 1899 by the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium and an administrative boundary set by Britain in 1902.

The Egyptian army seized control of Halayeb in 1995 after a failed attempt by Islamists, allegedly backed by Sudan, to assassinate ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia.

On Monday, Egypt wrapped up the second round of parliamentary elections, which had included the disputed territory in the first round of voting in October.

"The elections were conducted in a totally impartial and transparent fashion in the Halayeb and Shalatin dictrict," Mamdouh Ali Amara, who won the parliamentary seat in the disputed area, told local media.

Ghandour comments have come as Egyptian-Sudanese relation have been strained.

On Monday, five Sudanese were killed and six others wounded in a gunfight near the Israeli border as the migrants tried to cross into Israel.

Sudan has announced it has begun an investigation into the killing of 15 Sudanese migrants in the Sinai Peninsula in a separate incident earlier this month.

Ghandour said the Sudanese embassy in Cairo had sent a delegation to the city of al-Arish in northern Sinai to find out whether the Sudanese migrants had been killed by Egyptian border guard, according to al-Araby al-Jadeed's Sudan correspondent.

Earlier this month, the Sudanese embassy in Cairo submitted a memo to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry inquiring about a recent surge in harassment of Sudanese citizens in Egypt.

The memo mentioned that there had been frequent complaints by Sudanese travellers who claimed that they had been stopped in Cairo streets by the police, who even reportedly seized their money in the process.