Sudan trip not waste of time, say officials

GOVERNMENT officials last night rejected claims that a visit by Development Minister Tom Kitt to Sudan was a waste of time.

Minister Kitt leaves today for a week-long trip to Sudan, where more than a million displaced people in the Western Darfur region are in danger of dying unless sufficient aid reaches them quickly.

The crisis sparked by fighting between local Christian militias and Government-armed Arab rebels known as the Janjaweed has been described by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.