Sudan border overwhelmed with Ethiopian refugees

A small village on the Ethiopian border has seen a massive influx of refugees not witnessed in the region in more than 20 years.

At the reception centre in Hamadayet, on the border of Sudan and Ethiopia, more than 21,000 refugees have arrived in a bid to escape the violence in Ethiopia's Tigray region.

Aret Abraham, who is making the 10-hour bus ride to Um Rakouba, says she just wants to be home in Tigray.

She fled the conflict in Himora, walking with just the clothes on her back. She and her children have been sleeping on a dusty floor. She has been in the camp for more than a week and has finally decided to leave with her family.

"I want to go back. This is the most important thing. The most important thing are my kids, as you can see. If my country has peace. If the country gets peace then my kids will have peace and I can go back with my kids. All these people just want their country, but the problem is this war. We don't know who is fighting us. We don't know who is with us or who is not with us," she said.

More than two weeks since the conflict started, the refugees are being moved gradually to camps within Sudan's Gadarif region.

In total, more than 35,000 people have fled Tigray into Sudan.

The village isn't equipped to deal with this amount of people, according to Yacoub Mohammed Yacoub, the head of Hamdayet Border Reception Centre.

There is no housing or shelter for the refugees and most of them are staying in makeshift tents, with locals from Hamdayet, or even sleeping on the floor.

Nearly 5,000 refugees have already left for Um Rakouba camp, a refugee settlement organized by the Sudanese government. But there are concerns over the camp's proximity to the Amhara region of Ethiopia.