“The new arrivals are mostly women, children and the elderly. They tell us they fled bombings and fear of bombings by Antonov planes,” the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement, citing refugee accounts.
“There are also reports (from refugees) that armed militia on the Sudanese side of the Kurmuk border have warned the community to leave the area, possibly in preparation for a ground offensive,” it said.
There was no immediate comment by the Khartoum government, whose armed forces launched an attack on rebels in Sudan’s main oil state of South Kordofan on Wednesday and seized a rebel military camp, an army spokesman told a state-linked news website.
The Sudanese army has been fighting SPLM-N rebels since June in South Kordofan, which borders newly independent South Sudan. Violence spread to the neighbouring state of Blue Nile last month.
An estimated 28,700 Sudanese refugees have fled the Blue Nile state and crossed into Ethiopia since fighting began in early September, the UNHCR said.
“With the current situation in Blue Nile, more refugees are expected to arrive in Ethiopia,” it said, adding that it was working with Ethiopian authorities to expand a camp at Tongo, about 200 km from Kurmuk.
Ethiopia is also hosting some 174,000 Somali refugees, about half of whom arrived this year fleeing drought, famine and fighting in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, it said.
UNHCR’s appeal for $10 million to meet the urgent needs of Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia is only 5 percent funded, according to the agency. “We urge the international community to step up their response to this growing crisis,” it said