Sudanese families have been massing at a border crossing with Egypt and at a port city on the Red Sea, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses say.

In the capital, Khartoum, the intensity of the fighting eased on the second day of a three-day truce, and the military said it had “initially accepted” a diplomatic initiative to extend the current ceasefire for another three days after it expires on Thursday.

With the possibility of any future truce uncertain, many people took the opportunity presented during the lull in fighting to join the tens of thousands who have streamed out of the capital in recent days, trying to get out of the crossfire between the forces of Sudan’s two top generals.

Food has grown more difficult to obtain, and electricity is cut off across much of the capital and other cities. Multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations, a heavy blow in a country where a third of the population of 46 million relies on humanitarian assistance.