UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon promised to step up efforts to end the four-year-old conflict on his first visit to Darfur today and urged the world to be more sympathetic to the millions of people whose lives have been uprooted.

The new UN humanitarian chief warned today aid efforts in Darfur could collapse if the situation deteriorates and workers are prevented from doing their work.

Sudanese troops barred the UN humanitarian chief from visiting Darfur’s most violence-plagued refugee camp today during his first trip to the war-torn region.

Gunmen have killed two African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded a third in Darfur, the African Union said in a statement today.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir today rejected the deployment of UN troops in Darfur, saying they were not required and that African Union troops could maintain order in the war-wracked region of western Sudan.

Irish aid agency GOAL has withdrawn all of its international staff from Darfur as the security situation continues to deteriorate.

The chief of the only Darfur rebel group that signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government set an ultimatum today for Khartoum to disarm the feared janjaweed paramilitary group by the end of December.

The Sudanese government significantly raised the stakes in Khartoum’s stand-off with the international community, calling yesterday for the AU to withdraw its troops from all of Darfur.

The Sudanese government has launched a major offensive against rebels in war-torn Darfur in recent days, human rights activists and African Union officials said tonight.

THE build up of Sudanese troops in the war-torn western Darfur region could lead to a human rights catastrophe unless UN peacekeeping troops are sent to the region soon, Amnesty International warned yesterday.

Almost a 100 people were killed and wounded in a Sudanese air force bombardment in South Darfur on Wednesday, a UN spokeswoman said today.

The UN World Food Program suspended food convoys to the Darfur region in western Sudan after rebel forces attacked the market town of Ghubaysh and the government retaliated, UN humanitarian officials said.