Attacks threaten Oxfam's Darfur operation

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Oxfam could withdraw from Darfur if security worsens, its country director said on Monday, amid reports of 10 attacks in the past four days in Sudan's violent and remote west.

Despite a peace deal signed last year by the government and one rebel faction and intense global focus on ending the conflict, Darfur has descended into chaos forcing the world's largest aid operation to evacuate some areas and work at high risk in others to provide assistance to some 4 million people.

"It's certainly a strong possibility that if things get any worse Oxfam would have to withdraw," the British aid agency's country director Caroline Nursey told Reuters.

"Oxfam is operating at the limits of what it can tolerate as an organization. In most circumstances if the security situation were as bad as it is in Darfur we would withdraw.

"The only reason we are still there is that we are aware of very large numbers of people who are totally dependent on us for services," said Nursey, who has worked on Sudan for four years -- the last 18 months based in Khartoum.

Oxfam provides water and sanitation to 500,000 people in Darfur and neighboring Chad, where the conflict that began in Darfur in early 2003 has spilled across the border.

Two weeks ago an Oxfam vehicle was taken in broad daylight by armed men in South Darfur's massive and volatile Kalma camp. Nursey said the driver overheard the men debating whether to kill the two Oxfam staff members.

Last year an Oxfam driver was killed in North Darfur and staff faced mock executions in an attack in South Darfur.

CHAOTIC SCENARIO

Since the conflict began with a revolt by mostly non-Arabs accusing the government in Khartoum of neglect, some 200,000 people have died in Darfur and 2.5 million have fled their homes for sprawling camps run by aid groups.

Around 7,000 African Union police and troops have failed to stem the violence, and the AU has been accused of bias for mediating a 2006 deal which many in Darfur's makeshift camps reject as inadequate.

Rebels have since split into more than a dozen rival groups and mostly Arab militias have begun fighting each other or the government which had mobilized them to quell the revolt, creating a chaotic security scenario.

Rebels, government-backed militias and bandits have all been blamed for recent attacks. Some violence has also been tribal.

Between September 19-22, a U.N. statement reported eight attacks on aid convoys, compounds and police by unknown armed men in Darfur, an arid area the size of France.

On Monday a government official in West Darfur told Reuters Nertiti, in the central Jabel Marra area, was attacked two days ago. One civilian was killed and four injured. On Sunday four policemen were injured in an attack in nearby Suloo.

A seven-member U.N. panel of investigators in Geneva issued a report on Darfur on Monday but gave no overall assessment of the situation on the ground. It called on all sides of the conflict to stop violence against civilians and for Sudan to hold accountable those responsible for rights abuses.

EU FORCE

After months of negotiations and threats, Khartoum accepted a 26,000-strong joint U.N.-African Union force to absorb the struggling AU mission and try to quell the violence.

But a deadline for a troop commitment has had to be extended in part because western nations have not come up with the logistical and technical support needed to launch the mission.

Disputes have also arisen about the make-up of the force. U.N. officials in New York have said Khartoum and the AU have rejected non-African infantry battalions. Rebels say they prefer non-Africans because the AU has not controlled the crisis.

On Monday French daily Le Monde said France would this week present a U.N. resolution to authorize up to 4,000 European soldiers and police to deploy to neighboring Chad and Central African Republic, both of which have suffered as Darfur's conflict bled across the border.

The report said half the 3,000 soldiers needed would be French, but the command would not be. The force headquarters would be in Paris, working under a U.N. Chapter VII mandate.

The mission would support the joint U.N.-AU force in Darfur.

(Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris, Robert Evans in Geneva)