Addis Ababa (dpa) - The African Union (AU) has rejected claims by its detractors that it has not done enough to avert the worsening humanitarian crisis in Darfur, western Sudan.

"We have been involved from the start to contain the crisis without 'sensationalising' what we are doing," Ambassador Sam Ibok, Director of Peace and Security of the AU Commission, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The situation "is very grave and requires the action of everyone", he added.

The AU, along with the United Nations, has in recent weeks come under increasing fire from humanitarian organizations and international relief agencies for perceived inaction over the Darfur crisis, with some critics accusing the AU of "merely talking" about the situation.

Other concerned analysts have said that U.N. inaction regarding Darfur could possibly lead to another "Rwanda-scale" genocide.
The roots of the Darfur crisis lie in an insurrection by two black African rebel groups which began in 2003. Western Sudan has a long history of tensions between black African and Arab populations over grazing rights and land.

The Arab government in Khartoum mobilised an Arab militia - the so-called "Janjaweed" fighters, who often go into battle on horseback or riding camels - to put down the insurrection.
The Janjaweed force however has swelled to thousands of fighters and in recent months has been accused of a litany of atrocities against black African civilians, prompting calls for the Sudan government to "rein in" the Janjaweed, who some agencies describe as "marauding killers".

Several thousand civilians are estimated to have been killed in violent clashed between the two sides, while tens of thousands more have poured into refugee camps along the border and in neighbouring Chad where they face increasingly life-threatening shortages of food and essentials.

The situation has caught the world's attention in the past number of weeks, with fact-finding missions to the region carried out by senior U.N. and UNHCR figures as well as delegations from Britain, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell are due to visit the region this week.

The AU has further rejected accusations of inaction by pointing out that it has observers on the ground in Darfur to monitor an April ceasefire agreement between the government and the two leading black African rebel groups.

A further agreement signed at the AU Commission in Addis Ababa in late May committed all parties including the Janjaweed to observing a ceasefire in Darfur and to eventual disarmament.

"We are trying to do all we can to the limits of our resources," said Ibok, "and are working with everybody, including the U.N., as the task calls for collective efforts."

"We have observers on the ground in Darfur and people in Khartoum and n'Djamena (Chad) permanently working with the Sudanese and Chad governments to discuss how to contain the conflict permanently," he maintained.

Chairman of the AU Commission Alpha Oumar Konare has also paid two visits to the Darfur region in the past two months, the most recent from June 20 to June 21.

African analysts say that criticism of the AU stems from its failure to pressure Sudanese leader Omer Hassan al-Bashir, a member of the Peace and Security Council of the AU, to live up to the May agreement signed in Addis Ababa and crack down on the Janjaweed militias.

At the Addis Ababa meeting, which al-Bashir attended, the Peace and Security Council of the AU called on the Sudan government to act decisively and end the Janjaweed violence.

The fact that Khartoum has so far failed to do so has in the minds of many raised questions over the effectiveness of such AU deliberations, and the power or influence the Commission may or may not wield over its more wayward members.