UN rights team halts Darfur visit over visa bar

GENEVA, Feb 14 (Reuters) A UN human rights mission today said it was halting a planned visit to Sudan's troubled Darfur region after Sudan insisted one of the team should be replaced.

The announcement, issued by UN officials in Geneva, said the six-member mission, currently in Addis Ababa, would proceed with its work and ''collect all relevant information from locations outside the country (Sudan)''.

The move came after a Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday Khartoum would not let the team visit unless it replaced a member of the delegation Khartoum said was biased.

But UN human rights spokesman Jose Luis Diaz yesterday told reporters in Geneva that there had been no official objections from the Khartoum government to anyone on the team, led by 1997 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Jody Williams.

In its today's statement, the team said it had decided ''that it can no longer allow the continued uncertainty regarding visas from Sudan to impede the continuance of the mission'' after talks and consultations in the Ethiopian capital.

The statement quoted Williams as saying her group would carry on with its work outside Sudan and report back to the UN Human Rights Council -- scene of fierce wrangling last December on whether to send a mission to Darfur -- in March as planned.

In Addis Ababa, the team had talks with officials of the African Union and local United Nations representatives as well as with regional human rights experts and non-governmental organisations.

REUTERS KD KN1846