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Amid an outbreak of fighting between Sudan’s two rival military powers, Africa’s third-most populous country could see 815,000 people end up as refugees in neighboring countries, the United Nations warned on Monday.

The conflict between the Sudanese military and the powerful militia known as the Rapid Security Forces, which began last month, has already sent an estimated 73,000 people fleeing to bordering nations in just over two weeks, including Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and Eritrea, said the UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, on Monday. By Tuesday, that estimate had been increased to more than 100,000.

Of that figure, an estimated 580,000 will be Sudanese and 235,000 will be South Sudanese “seeking to return home” to their country that split from Sudan in 2011, according to Raouf Mazou, a top official at the UNHCR.

According to the U.N., Sudan had an existing population of refugees of 1.3 million from surrounding nations where conflicts had occurred in recent years, including South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Syria.

The situation on the ground “is reaching a breaking point,” U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Coordinator Martin Griffiths said Sunday before being dispatched by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to Sudan by way of Nairobi, Kenya. The U.N. described Griffiths as Guterres’ “most senior aid official.”

“My message to the parties is unequivocal: Protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. Ensure safe passage for civilians fleeing areas of hostilities. Respect humanitarian workers and assets. Facilitate relief operations. Respect medical personnel, transport and facilities and stop using them as shields,” Griffiths said.

As of April 25, the U.N. estimated over 450 people have been killed, more than 4,000 have been injured, and at least 20 hospitals have been forced to close due to the fighting.

According to the UNHCR, at least 30,000 refugees largely ended up in border villages in Chad, a country where 400,000 refugees from Sudan are already located. Another 20,000 ended up in South Sudan, 90% of whom the U.N. estimates are South Sudanese nationals returning home.

Egypt has taken in 14,000 refugees, with 1,000 people arriving every day, Mazou said, citing the Egyptian Red Cross.

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration estimated Monday 334,000 people had been displaced internally since the start of the fighting, the majority in the Darfur region.

The existing humanitarian crisis prior to the current conflict resulted in 16 million Sudanese, requiring humanitarian assistance, with 3.7 million displaced, largely from the Darfur region, where violence over the last 20 years was described as a genocide by the George W. Bush administration and International Criminal Court prosecutors.

Additionally, 15 million Sudanese, out of a total population of 48 million, were already facing “severe food insecurity,” according to Cindy McCain, the executive director of the U.N.’s World Food Programme. Four million children, and pregnant and lactating women “are severely malnourished,” the U.N. said.

“We expect these numbers to grow significantly as the fighting continues,” McCain said in a statement announcing the return of WFP operations in the country after a temporary suspension after three workers were killed in North Darfur.

Fighting and looting has severely damaged the U.N.’s operations in the country, according to Adbou Dieng, the U.N.’s senior most aid official in Sudan. The WFP lost 4,000 metric tons of food alone in the city of Nyala, located in southwest Sudan.

“In the wake of large scale of looting and violence, we are working to identify ways to bring into the country supply to replenish our stockpile, so that we can deliver aid to those in need as soon as it is safe to do so,” he said, noting negotiations to give a U.N. team based in Nairobi access to Sudan were underway.

The battle for control of Sudan erupted on April 15, after months of escalating tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, the rival paramilitary group commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Other nations have tried to convince the two generals to stop the fighting and come to the negotiating table. The government of South Sudan said Tuesday that the two rival generals have agreed in “principle” on a weeklong cease-fire starting on Thursday, and on engaging in peace talks. The statement did not elaborate on the possible venue or timing for the talks.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir spoke with both Burhan and Dagalo over the phone, the government said in a statement. There was no immediate comment from either the army or the paramilitary, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to the South Sudanese proposal, there has been other suggestions aimed at stopping the violence and avoiding a worsening humanitarian disaster. Both sides agreed to send representatives for talks that would potentially be held in Saudi Arabia, according the U.N. envoy in Sudan, Volker Perthes. The kingdom has joined the United States in pressing for a lasting cease-fire.

Another proposal, put forward by Sudan’s former Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, who met this week with regional leaders and Western diplomats in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, set forward a series of five steps to help the two sides reconcile.

The power struggle has derailed Sudan’s efforts to restore its democratic transition, which was halted in Oct. 2021 when Burhan and Dagalo, then allies, removed Hamdok’s Western-backed transitional government in a coup.