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

African leaders tried Monday to kickstart talks in Ethiopia's escalating internal conflict, two days after rocket strikes on Eritrea's capital highlighted the risk that the fighting could spread.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni held talks with Ethiopia's Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, while former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo headed to Addis Ababa to make his bid for dialogue.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced November 4 he had ordered military operations in Tigray in a dramatic escalation of a long-running feud with the region's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed so far in the conflict in Africa's second most populous country, some in a massacre documented last week by Amnesty International.

More than 25,000 Ethiopians have fled into Sudan, Sudanese officials say.

"A war in Ethiopia would give the entire continent a bad image," Museveni wrote on Twitter after meeting Demeke in the northern town of Gulu.

"There should be negotiations and the conflict stopped, lest it leads to unnecessary loss of lives and cripples the economy."

But Museveni later deleted the tweet, and an Ethiopian official said Demeke made clear negotiations were not an immediate possibility.

"We don't need mediation until we bring ringleaders to court," Redwan Hussein, the spokesman for a crisis committee set up to respond to hostilities in Tigray, told reporters in Addis Ababa.

"Any mediation would incentivize impunity and unruliness."

Redwan added that Demeke would deliver the same message to other East African leaders, and the Kenyan presidency said late Monday that Demeke had met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi, who called for a "peaceful" resolution of the crisis.

AFP