No prospect for Darfur refugees to return home: UN

GENEVA, Jan 30 (Reuters) Constant fighting in Sudan's Darfur region has erased the prospects for 2 million Sudanese people uprooted by the conflict to return home, the United Nations refugee agency said today.

Launching a new appeal for 19.7 million dollar, meant to cover assistance programmes in West Darfur this year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said regular attacks between Sudanese government troops, rebels and Arab militias had threatened aid workers.

''There is no prospect of return for internally displaced people in Darfur, nor for the more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees hosted in eastern Chad,'' UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists in Geneva.

Funds will be used to provide protection, shelter and other basic needs to uprooted persons in Darfur, where there is a high incidence of sexual-based crimes, the UNHCR said.

The 200,000 Chadians who fled to Darfur to escape Arab militia raids in their own country also need assistance, the agency said, noting the ''extremely precarious security conditions'' in the remote part of western Sudan.

''The region is characterised by a continuing state of mergency,'' it said, noting that 12 aid workers have been killed in Darfur in past months.

In eastern Chad, where UNHCR runs 12 refugee camps for about 230,000 Sudanese refugees, the agency said it was ''deeply concerned'' about security prospects.

''Chadians still live in daily fear of attacks, and some who had returned to their villages following pledges of increased security have reportedly returned to (internally displaced persons') sites because of continuing violence,'' it said.

Environmental stresses are also building in Chad, where natural resources such as water and firewood are scarce, UNCHR said. ''The additional pressure caused by tens of thousands of additional people fleeing insecurity poses a very real risk of depleting those resources,'' it said.

REUTERS SP KP2118