NAIROBI, Kenya -- Up to 200,000 refugees are expected to pour into Sudan while fleeing the deadly conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, officials said Wednesday, while the first details are emerging of largely cutoff civilians under growing strain. Nearly 10,000 people have crossed the border, including some wounded in the fighting, and the flow is growing quickly.
"There are lots of children and women," Al-Sir Khalid, the head of the refugee agency in Sudan's Kassala province, said. "They are arriving very tired and exhausted. They are hungry and thirsty since they have walked long distances on rugged terrain."
Authorities are overwhelmed and the situation is deteriorating, he said.
Inside the Tigray region, long lines have appeared outside bread shops, and supply-laden trucks are stranded at its borders, the United Nations humanitarian chief in Ethiopia said.
"We want to have humanitarian access as soon as possible," Sajjad Mohammad Sajid said. "Fuel and food are needed urgently." Up to 2 million people in Tigray have a "very, very difficult time."
Fuel is already being rationed, and the U.N. refugee agency said it and partners "will struggle to continue running their operations in the next two weeks."
Communications remain almost completely severed with the Tigray region a week after Ethiopia's Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced a military offensive in response to an alleged attack by regional forces. He insists there will be no negotiations with a regional government he considers illegal until its ruling "clique" is arrested and its well-stocked arsenal is destroyed.
Ethnic Tigrayans reportedly are being targeted across Ethiopia, the Tigray Communication Affairs Bureau said in a Facebook post. Abiy has warned against ethnic profiling, but observers are alarmed by the development in a country already plagued by deadly ethnic violence.
Rallies in support of the federal government's measures are planned today in the capital, Addis Ababa, and other cities in the Oromia and Amhara regions, along with a blood drive for the Ethiopian army.
The European Union, the African Union and others have urged Abiy for an immediate deescalation as the conflict threatens to destabilize the strategic but vulnerable Horn of Africa region. The top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, spoke with Ethiopia's foreign minister and stressed that peace in Ethiopia is "indispensable" for the region, the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The standoff leaves more than 1,000 people of different nationalities stranded in the Tigray region, while nearly 900 aid workers from the U.N. and other groups struggle to contact the outside world with pleas for help. "Nine U.N. agencies, almost 20 [nongovernmental organizations], all depending on two offices" with the means to communicate, Sajid said.
With airports in Tigray closed, roads blocked, internet service cut off and even banks no longer operating, it "makes our life very difficult in terms of ensuring almost 2 million people receive humanitarian assistance," he said.
There was no sign of a lull in the fighting that has included airstrikes by federal forces and hundreds of people reported dead on each side. It was not clear how many of the dead are civilians.
"It looks like, unfortunately, this may not be something which can be resolved by any party in a week or two," Sajid said. "It looks like it's going to be a protracted conflict, which is a huge concern from the point of view of protection of civilians."
"Even the physical security of the refugees is at stake, if the conflict expands," U.N. refugee agency spokesman Kisut Gebreegziabher said. The four camps in Tigray hosting 96,000 refugees are not in immediate danger as the fighting is largely in the west near the border with Sudan and Eritrea, he said.
The refugees at least have more food than usual because supplies for two months, instead of one, were handed out this month as a pandemic measure to limit people congregating, he said. But no one knows how long the conflict could drag on.
"Every global agency, the U.N., is asking for a cease-fire but we haven't seen any agreement, any willingness to dialogue," Kisut said.
Ethiopia's federal government and Tigray's regional government, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, blame each other for starting the conflict. Each regards the other as illegal. The Tigray People's Liberation Front dominated Ethiopia's ruling coalition for years before Abiy came to office in 2018 but has since broken away while accusing the prime minister's administration of targeting and marginalizing its officials.
Airstrikes will continue, Ethiopia's air force chief, Maj. Gen. Yilma Merdasa, told reporters Wednesday, asserting that forces had destroyed weapons depots, gas stations and other targets with "supreme control of the skies."