KHARTOUM (AFP) — An estimated 20,000 people are trapped in a remote area of western Darfur where rebels battling the Sudanese army have denied access to aid workers, a top UN official said on Monday.
Ameerah Haq, the humanitarian coordinator in Sudan said around 20,000 people were in the Jebel Moon area in a part of Darfur devastated by recent fighting between government forces and rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement.
"This morning we were supposed to have an assessment to go there but we were actually denied access by JEM and therefore we are calling on JEM to give us that access," she told the British Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.
Asked whether they were trapped, Haq said: "Yes, in a sense they are."
"We are worried about whether they have sufficient (supplies), particularly food. They took refuge there but now we have no contact with them... so I think it's urgent, as I said to get that access to people quickly in Jebel Moon."
Haq, the most senior UN humanitarian official based in Sudan, voiced concern about the civilians' fate because of the build-up of government troops in the mountainous area.
"We've had reports of many convoys and other movements of troops to that area... We're worried and concerned about what will happen in Jebel Moon because of the movement of troops there," she said.
"Innocent populations are getting it from all sides, from JEM and the government," she added.
"A lot of NGOs and humanitarian compounds were raided and a number of the NGOs also had their staff members killed," she said.
Haq, who has twice in two weeks visited western Darfur, the site of the worst recent violence during the five-year war, spoke of the devastation she saw.
In the village of Sirba, she said a lot of houses were "burnt and razed to the ground" and 73 children were unaccounted for since thousands of people fled into the bush when villages came under attack.
Haq called on the Sudanese government to deploy civilian police immediately, for troops from the under-manned UN-African Union peacekeeping mission to deploy to the affected areas and for unimpeded humanitarian access.
Overall, she said the United Nations continues to believe 58,000 people remain affected by the violence in that part of Darfur.
The UN refugee agency says 13,000 refugees fled into Chad from Darfur since the Sudanese army and its Janjaweed militia allies began heavy bombardments of rebel strongholds around the Jebel Moon area on February 8.
The Sudanese military last month described the area -- not far from El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state -- as a "legitimate" military target.
Since the conflict broke out in February 2003, at least 200,000 people have died and more than two million have fled their homes after ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated regime, the United Nations says.
The Sudanese government maintains, however, that 9,000 have been killed.
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