The United Nations said Thursday up to 20,000 people had fled escalating violence in Sudan to seek safety in Chad, many of whom lacked basic needs such as food, water and shelter.
UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency said the majority of those arriving were women and children, who were currently sheltering out in the open or have taken refuge in villages along the border inside Chad.
UNHCR said eastern Chad, which borders Darfur, was already hosting 400,000 refugees from Sudan, and the new arrivals were placing additional strain on the country's already overstretched public services and resources.
Chad's communications minister and government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh told AFP that between 10,000 and 20,000 people had been welcomed in, mainly in the Assoungha department in Ouaddai province.
"Every day people are pouring in and a humanitarian corridor is open," he said
In the capital and sister cities Omdurman and Bahri, residents gathered at bus terminals with suitcases after more explosions and gunfire in the morning.
"There's no food, supermarkets are empty, the situation isn't safe, honestly, so people are leaving," said Khartoum resident who gave only his first name, Abdelmalek.
Many other locals remain trapped, along with thousands of foreigners, in a city rapidly degenerating into a war zone.
The fiercest battles between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been around Khartoum, one of Africa's largest urban areas, and in Darfur, still scarred by a brutal conflict that ended three years ago.
Eyewitnesses in the city of El-Obeid east of Darfur described clashes between the army and paramilitary forces and widespread looting.
Even before the conflict, around a quarter of Sudan's population was facing acute hunger, but the WFP halted one of its largest global operations in the country on Saturday after three workers were killed.
The fighting has made it difficult, if not deadly, for people to buy food and other goods in celebration of Friday's arrival of Eid al Fitr, the end of Ramadan.