CAIRO, Egypt, May 7, 2004 (AP) -- Sudan's foreign minister denied Friday that government forces are engaged in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in the western Darfur region, after a prominent human rights group accused them of driving more than 1 million black Africans from their homes.

The report Friday by Human Rights Watch said soldiers and nomadic Arab militiamen, known as janjaweed, have killed thousands of people in a deliberate campaign to drive black African tribes from the Darfur region.

It accused the Arab-dominated government of providing weapons and air support to the Arab janjaweed militia, who often sweep into villages riding camels and horses, and called on the U.N. Security Council, meeting Friday on the Darfur situation, to step in to help stop the bloodshed and look for evidence of crimes against humanity.

In Geneva, the U.N. rights chief said a government-backed "reign of terror" was taking place in Darfur province, with indications of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Bertrand Ramcharan said in a report to be presented to the Security Council that the abuses were "perpetrated by the government of Sudan and its proxy militia."

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, returning to Khartoum from a trip to Kenya on Friday, denied any "ethnic cleansing" was taking place.

"What is happening in Darfur is neither ethnic cleansing nor genocide," Ismail told the official Sudan News Agency. "It is a state of war, which resulted in a humanitarian situation."

Human Rights Watch likened the Darfur situation to the beginning of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when 500,000 people were slaughtered by a government-backed, extremist militia. The international community has been widely criticized for not intervening to stop the bloodshed.

"Ten years after the Rwandan genocide and despite years of soul- searching, the response of the international community to the events in Sudan has been nothing short of shameful," Human Rights Watch said in its 77-page report.

The report drew on a visit to the region by researchers in March and April.

"Together, the government and Arab janjaweed militias targeted the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa (ethnic groups) through a combination of indiscriminate and deliberate aerial bombardment, denial of access to humanitarian assistance, and scorched-earth tactics that displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians," the group said.

Sudan's government has denied supporting the janjaweed militia, which it said is defending itself against autonomy-seeking rebels.

But Human Rights Watch said the government not only supports the janjaweed - providing salaries, ammunition and satellite telephones - it actually created it.

Human Rights Watch said "the Janjaweed are not restrained, in any way, by the uniformed government forces who accompany them in army cars and trucks."

The report chronicled attacks on 14 villages in one area between September and February that it said killed 770 civilians.

It described men on horseback killing 82 men, women and children in a mosque; a militiaman using racial slurs to insult a 3-year-old boy, then shooting him point-blank; and janjaweed raping a group of 13 women.

The violence has sent more than 1 million people fleeing, according to the United Nations, and about 110,000 have crossed the border into Chad, although it is difficult to know the exact number.

"People are scattered along this massive strip 370 miles long. It's a race against time to move them before the rains set in," in about 10 days, said Peter Kessler, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, speaking in a telephone interview from Geneva.

After that, he said, "it will be impossible to get aid to them."

The Darfur crisis comes as Sudan moves closer to a delicate, internationally brokered peace in a 21-year civil war that broadly pits the Muslim north against the Christian and animist south. Negotiators have resolved most issues that had held up an agreement, rebel spokesman Yasir Arman told The Associated Press on Friday.

More than 2 million people have died in that war.