Ethiopian refugees speak of how they fled to Sudan

A quiet day at the Ethiopia-Sudan border checkpoint at Lugdi where a piece of rope keeps the two nations apart.

At its height, the crossing saw more than 500 people a day walk or drive through but numbers have dwindled to 20 for the day, Sudanese border police told the Associated Press.

The United Nations estimates that over 35,000 people have fled deadly fighting in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region and crossed into Sudan.

Ethiopia's government is waging war in Tigray region and seeking to arrest its defiant leaders, who regard the federal government as illegitimate after a falling-out over power.

A few kilometers away from Lugdi checkpoint, refugees have been placed in temporary shelter in the township of Village 8.

A town that had 3,000 empty housing units is now holding 15,000 people from the Tigray area.

On Saturday, scores of women lined up in the middle of the camp to receive their ration of sanitary products from the United Nations Population Fund.

But refugees are not getting enough of the aid they need according to Seneyet Kahsan, an Ethiopian refugee.

The 30-year-old arrived at Village 8, 13 days ago from Mai Kadar, a town that has endured a massacre according to Amnesty International.

"There are women who didn't bring anything with them. No food or anything with them. They came on foot from our village till they reached Sudan," Kahsan said.

Haftoun Berha, a 21-year-old refugee also from Mai Kadar said when the fighting began there, he escaped with his family.

"I can only escape with my parents and my family but there is nothing that we brought here," he said.

He expressed worries about people still trapped in Tigray region.

The fighting that could destabilize the Horn of Africa is hidden from outside view.

Communications are severed, roads blocked and airports closed.

Each side regards the other as illegal, the result of a falling out between Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray leaders who once dominated the country's ruling coalition.

At least several hundred people have been killed in over two weeks of fighting, and the United Nations has condemned ”targeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnicity or religion."