On Wednesday, a US State Dept statement said that the US Secretary of State Blinken discussed concerns about Ethiopia with the Sudanese Prime Minister and that they agreed to encourage parties towards a ceasefire.

As the conflict in Tigray enters its ninth month, thousands continue to be displaced internally and continue to cross into Sudan.

Approximately 60,000 people have fled the conflict in Tigray region to seek refuge in Sudan.

Sudanese authorities said that the recent fighting is pushing thousands more towards Sudan.

US aid chief Samantha Power called on rebel forces to immediately withdraw from two regions bordering Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray, as the conflict threatens to envelop the rest of the country.

Around 5.2-million people in Ethiopia need humanitarian aid, the UN says, following more than eight months of fighting.

Hundreds of thousands face famine as aid-workers continue to face huge delays and bureaucratic hurdles to gain access to the armed conflict zones.

Ethiopia suspended the activities on Wednesday of two humanitarian organisations (MSF & NRC) working in the war-torn Tigray region. “We are in the process of urgently seeking clarification from the authorities around the reasons and details for this suspension,” MSF said in a statement.

Jeremy Taylor, a spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said that the organisation has suspended its operations in Ethiopia. The government “justified the suspension by arguing that NRC had spread false information on social media and failed to obtain the appropriate permissions for international staff working in-country,” he said in an interview.

Aljazeera/Agencies