Sudan is now bracing for a wave of refugees to its borders.
Government officials said that up to 200,000 refugees may be knocking on its doors within the week as fighting continues in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region.
The head of Sudan's refugee agency in the country's Kassala province, Al-Sir Khalid, said that close to 10,000 refugees had already crossed its borders. Some of those that had entered had required medical assistance. He added that more will be coming.
"There are lots of children and women...They are arriving very tired and exhausted. They are hungry and thirsty since they have walked long distances on rugged terrain," Khalid told reporters.
The United Nations said that thousands have been left stranded along the Sudan-Ethiopia border and it is doing what it can to provide food and supplies to the refugees. The organization added that up to 2 million people in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region are having a "very, very difficult time" because of the escalating civil war.
The influx of refugees comes just days after Ethiopia's Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that the government will be launching a military offensive against regional forces. The order came after a group linked to the Oromo Liberation Army was reported to have killed at least 54 people in the country's southern Oromia province.
Abiy said that the country is unwilling to negotiate with the Northern Tigray People's Liberation Front and other regional forces and it aims to arrest all of their leaders and destroy their arsenal of weapons.
The conflict erupted after the Ethiopian Parliament approved the establishment of a transitional government in Tigray to allow Abiy to take political control in the region. Since Abiy came into power in 2018, he has enacted major reforms in the country, which included loosening state controls. This reignited long-simmering ethnic conflicts within the region.
Several Human Rights groups, the United Nations, and the African Union have called on Abiy to immediately de-escalate on humanitarian reasons and to prevent the destabilization of the country's government.
