Darfur conflict lasting 'too long': Mbeki

The conflict in Darfur has dragged on for too long, former South African president Thabo Mbeki said Saturday after talks with Sudanese leader Omar al-Beshir.

"This conflict has lasted too long," Mbeki told reporters in Khartoum, where he is leading a high-level African Union panel that is looking into the conflict and drawing up recommendations for the AU peace and security council.

"It has been very costly in all sort of ways," he said. "Something must be done in order to end it as soon as possible."

The United Nations estimated that more than 300,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003 when fighting erupted between armed rebel groups and Sudanese government forces and allied Janjaweed militia.

The Sudan government puts the death toll at 10,000, however, as Beshir defies a warrant issued in March by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his arrest for alleged war crimes.

The AU panel has been meeting this week with Sudanese government officials, Darfur tribal leaders, representatives of 2.7 million displaced victims of the fighting, and the chiefs of the hybrid AU-UN mission in Darfur.

Its visit coincided with one by the US special envoy for Darfur, Scott Gration, who said Saturday in Khartoum that the humanitarian crisis in the vast, arid and impoverished western region is "on the brink of deepening".

"We were very pleased indeed when the president said that an instruction had been given to all ministers and departments and so on to fully cooperate with the panel," Mbeki told reporters.

While the panel is looking into the impact of last month's expulsion of 13 international aid groups from Darfur, Mbeki noted that the African Union has not asked it look into the ICC warrant against Beshir.

Other members of the AU panel include the former Burundi and Nigerian presidents Pierre Buyoya and Abdusalami Abubakar.