Diplomats from the U.N. Security Council traveled to Sudan's western Darfur region Thursday to review efforts to resolve the conflict in the war-torn territory.
The delegation arrived in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, for talks with the state governor as well as humanitarian aid workers.
The diplomats also planned to visit the headquarters of the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur before returning to Khartoum for evening talks with Sudan's president.
The delegation met Wednesday with Sudanese government officials in the capital, Khartoum, to urge them to fully implement a 2005 peace agreement with the south.
British Ambassador John Sawers said Wednesday recent clashes in the town of Abyei have increased frustration surrounding the peace plan that was intended to end the north-south civil war.
Sawers also characterized discussions with senior presidential aides about Sudan's cooperation with the International Criminal Court as "unsatisfactory."
ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said in a report to the Security Council that top Sudanese government officials are behind some of the most heinous crimes committed during the Darfur conflict. He is to present the report to Security Council members in New York later Thursday.
Sudan's ambassador to the U.N., Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed, has called the report "fictitious and vicious."
Five years of fighting in the region between rebels, the Sudanese government and government-backed militias has displaced some 2.5 million people and killed up to 300,000 others.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
