Sudanese army surrounds Darfur refugee camps

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Sudanese army and police have surrounded several refugee camps in the war-torn region of Darfur and denied access to humanitarian groups, the United Nations said Tuesday. The Sudanese government denied its security forces closed off the camps but said angry Arab tribesmen have gathered in the area.\nThe U.N. World Food Program said three camps were surrounded -- apparently in retaliation for the abduction of 18 Arabs by Darfur rebels -- and that it was forced to pull 88 relief workers from those areas.\nThe WFP fears the government may start forcing people from the camps back to their home villages, where there is less protection from government-backed militias known as Janjaweed that have been attacking towns, said WPF spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume.\nThe camps were cut off "at 3 a.m. without any warning," she said. "Agencies have been denied access to these camps since this morning."\nAt least 160,000 refugees in western Darfur cannot be reached by road "because of insecurity," Berthiaume said.\nThe aid workers -- most working for independent aid groups -- were pulled from the Golu, Zaleinge and Nertetie camps. The agency still has three employees in Zaleinge and Nertetie but might evacuate them as well, Berthiaume said.\nSudan, however, denied any army or police forces were surrounding the camps. "There is no siege," Humanitarian Affairs minister Ibrahim Hamid told The Associated Press in Khartoum. "It is not true that the government was telling organizations to pull out of the area, and the areas are not besieged."\nHamid said that angry Arab tribesmen gathered in the area after the kidnapping of 18 of their men by Darfur rebels. "The African Union has been alerted and they said they would bring those abducted out of the mountainous areas of Zaleinge," he said.\nSudan's government is accused of backing the Janjaweed in a campaign of violence -- including rapes, killings and the burning of villages -- to help put down a 19-month rebellion by non-Arab African groups. The government denies backing the Janjaweed.\nAttacks have uprooted 1.5 million of Darfur's people, and at least 70,000 have died, mostly through disease and hunger, according to the United Nations. The United Nations and aid groups have called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis.\nThe United Nations has suspended all field missions by international organizations because of the kidnapping and violence in Darfur, Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said.\n"Along with other international organizations, we have had to cancel missions to the field planned for this week," he said.\nHamid said that rebels near Zaleinge stopped buses and trucks Thursday and Friday, forcing people of Arab origin to dismount, then took a group into the mountains. Most of those abducted were students, he said, and three managed to escape and get word to their tribes.