Ethiopian refugees who fled fighting in Tigray province lay in a hut at the Um Rakuba camp in Gedaref province, Sudan on Monday.

The UN said Tuesday that a full-blown humanitarian crisis was unfolding in northern Ethiopia, where thousands of people each day are fleeing the conflict in the Tigray region.

The warning came as diplomats and humanitarian officials reported heavy fighting in northern and southern Tigray, and as federal forces claimed "major victories" that would bring them closer to the regional capital Mekele. 

A communications blackout in Tigray throughout the two-week conflict has made claims of advances difficult to verify.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 2019's Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced the military campaign in Tigray on November 4, saying it came in response to attacks by the local ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), on federal military camps.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday that around 27,000 Ethiopians had fled across the border into Sudan - a figure now rising by around 4,000 people each day. 

"A full-scale humanitarian crisis is unfolding," spokesman Babar Baloch told a virtual press briefing from Geneva.

Those arriving in Sudan recounted terrifying scenes of artillery barrages and massacres.

"I saw bodies dismembered by the explosions," said Ganet Gazerdier, 75, whose home was destroyed in the town of Humera, and finds herself at a refugee camp in eastern Sudan.

"Other bodies were rotting, lying on the road, murdered with a knife", she added.

On Friday Abiy declared the TPLF was "in the final throes of death" and gave regional troops three days to "rise up" and side with the national army.

AFP