Aid workers are getting less and less access to those in need in the war-torn Darfur region even as 50,000 people fled their homes amid a government offensive this month, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan says.

International donors pledged an additional €160m to fund the African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur today during a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to raise money to stop the ongoing violence in western Sudan.

Arab countries say that the Sudanese government needs more time to end the crisis in its troubled western Darfur region, where purportedly state-backed Arab militias are accused of killing thousands of African villagers.