UN says Darfur clashes hinder access to refugees

Clashes between Sudanese army and rebel forces in Darfur are stopping aid agencies assessing the needs of some of the more than one million displaced people there, the United Nations said yesterday.

"Due to clashes... an inter-agency team was not able to commence assessment of villages in Tawilla rural areas," it said. The fighting was in North Darfur state, about 70 km west of the state capital El-Fasher.

The UN said it received similar reports of fighting in Ailliet, about 250 km southeast of the capital. Banditry in South Darfur state was also a problem, it said.

A UN Security Council resolution passed on Saturday threatens economic sanctions on Khartoum if it does not stop violence in Darfur, which Washington has termed genocide.

The UN says fighting has displaced 1.5 million people, with more than 200,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad, in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Sudan said yesterday it was sorry the UN resolution was passed but it would fully abide by it. The resolution also calls for a commission to investigate human rights abuses and see if the US declaration of genocide in Darfur was correct.

Sudan said the resolution's mention of a military no-fly zone over Darfur went beyond a ceasefire agreement signed between the rebels and the government in Chad in April.

Peace talks in Nigeria collapsed last week, and the top UN envoy in Sudan and the government blamed the rebels.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir blamed the US for the talks' failure, singling out Washington's declaration that there was genocide in the region as encouragement to the rebels.

"The American administration wants to own the rights to exploit Sudan's oil," he added in comments published yesterday by a news agency with close links to the government.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "As the government has expressed its willingness to abide by its commitments, then it expects that the international community will abide by its commitments in providing humanitarian aid and helping to reach a political solution."

"The government wants to cooperate with the international community to successfully realise security and peace in Darfur."

African Union monitors say they have confirmed 20 violations in the past two months of the April ceasefire. They say the violations were from both sides.

In Addis Ababa, the AU's Peace and Security Council called on Sudan's government for more cooperation. The head of the AU mission in Darfur, Festus Okonkwo, says Sudan has cooperated with the AU, but that he needs many more troops and observers to cover a vast region as big as France.

After years of low-level conflict between Arab nomads and African farmers, rebels launched a revolt last year accusing the government of supporting Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn African villages.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels, but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them bandits.