Darfur rebels said Tuesday they were ready to withdraw from a battle-scarred town as long as peacekeepers took control and ran it as a military-free zone, reported Reuters.
U.N. officials said at least 30 people had died and thousands been forced to flee in more than two weeks of fighting between Sudanese government troops, rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and other fighters in and around the south Darfur town of Muhajiriya.
Sudan's government Sunday raised the prospect of further violence when it asked joint U.N./African Union UNAMID peacekeepers to leave their base in the town ahead of a planned assault on JEM forces.
JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim Tuesday told Reuters he was prepared to pull his forces out of the area following an appeal for a JEM withdrawal by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"That is with one condition: that the army and the government and Minni Minnawi should not come there ... It should be a non-military zone for civilians and IDPs (internally displaced people) and UNAMID," he said.
"If they come back, we will come back."
JEM seized control of Muhajiriya in mid-January from troops loyal to Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only Darfur rebel leader to sign a peace deal with Khartoum in 2006.
No one was immediately available from Sudan's government or army to comment.
UNAMID officials said the UN/AU representative in Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, was planning to fly to Chad Wednesday to meet JEM commanders.
UNAMID has promised to stay in the settlement to protect 30,000 civilians, half of whom are residents, half Darfuris displaced from earlier clashes in the near six-year conflict.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Tuesday she was worried about the fate of civilians, adding that at least 30 people had died since January 15.
"The fighting is reported to have involved ground offensives and indiscriminate aerial bombardment by government forces that failed to distinguish between civilian communities and military targets," Pillay said.
"JEM forces are also reported to have deliberately placed themselves in areas heavily populated by civilians, therefore jeopardizing their safety."
Fighting has escalated in the build-up to a looming decision from the International Criminal Court on whether to issue an arrest warrant against Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of orchestrating genocide in Darfur.
International experts say 200,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million have been driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against Khartoum in 2003, accusing it of neglecting the development of the region. Khartoum, which says 10,000 have died, accuses the Western media of exaggerating the conflict.
U.N. officials said Sudanese security agents prevented U.N. and African Union peacekeepers from visiting Muhajiriya, a strategic town 80km (50 miles) from the capital of south Darfur Nyala, earlier on Tuesday
A high-level UNAMID fact-finding mission that included the force's deputy force commander was kept waiting for hours at the airport in El Fasher, the capital of north Darfur, then told they could not fly to Muhajiriya, said a U.N. officer who asked not to be named.
UNAMID and JEM rebels reported government planes bombed land outside Muhajiriya Monday, causing thousands of residents to take shelter around the peacekeeping base. UNAMID said blasts had been heard from outside the town again Tuesday morning, but peacekeepers had been unable to confirm what caused them.
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