Kenyan President William Ruto urged Sudan's warring generals on Wednesday to "stop the nonsense" and called for a rethinking of the African Union (AU) to better address the continent's conflicts.

Since April, battles between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads a paramilitary force, have killed around 1,000 people and displaced nearly a million in Sudan.

Put an end to the nonsense.

"We need to tell those generals to stop the nonsense," Ruto said at a gathering of African legislators in South Africa.

The United Nations has estimated that more than $3 billion will be required to provide urgent aid in the conflict-torn country, where one in every three people relied on humanitarian aid prior to the war.

After several truces were broken in recent weeks, hopes for a ceasefire remain dim.

Speaking at the Pan-African Parliamentarian Summit, an AU meeting of MPs near Johannesburg, Ruto said the situation highlighted the bloc's flaws.

"As it stands, we have no capacity to stop this nonsense in our own continent," Ruto said, adding that the AU's peace and security efforts were dependent on outside funding.

"The Peace and Security Committee," he said, referring to the AU's conflict resolution body.

According to the AU's 2021 report, member states contribute only 37% of the budget.

The remainder of the funds are provided by international partners such as the European Union and individual states.