KHARTOUM, 27 February 2004 — Major roads to the northern region of west Sudan are now open for relief supplies, a Sudanese minister told the official news agency SUNA yesterday.

The improved access has raised hopes a humanitarian crisis can be avoided, but one aid agency warned that without more international help, many lives were still at risk.

Humanitarian Assistance Minister Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid said aid could now reach all of Northern Darfur state, which has been subject to heavy fighting in the past year since rebels took up arms against the government saying it was neglecting Darfur.

The United Nations agreed its access to the vast area where about a million people have fled fighting had improved, to about 25 percent from 15 percent in early February.

“We now have access to about 25 percent of the displaced people inside Darfur thanks to some improvement in security and some improvement in access,” a UN spokesman said.

But medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) said a bigger effort to help people fleeing attacks was needed.

“Without immediate, largescale support from other aid organizations, the already alarming situation in Darfur will continue to deteriorate,” MSF said in a statement.

MSF said its teams were constantly discovering new groups of families forced to flee by fighting in Darfur, including a band of 17,000 people recently sighted northwest of the settlement of Mornay in western Sudan.

“Without urgent medical, food and water and sanitation assistance, these people’s lives are threatened,” MSF said.

The government announced earlier this month it had crushed the Darfur rebellion, paving the way for opening new “corridors” for relief supplies.

“Major roads to all parts of Northern Darfur are now open for moving humanitarian aid to all areas in Northern Darfur state up to Al-Geneina,” the minister said.

The town of Al-Geneina is 1,100 km west of Khartoum.

Rebels from the two main groups have dismissed government claims of victory. On Wednesday, rebels said they had opened a new front in the Kordofan region, neighboring Darfur.