GENEVA, April 27 (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee agency plans to bolster its operations in West Darfur, where more than 700,000 have been driven from their homes, spokesman William Spindler said on Friday. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres agreed during a visit to Sudan this week to boost the agency's presence in the conflict-torn region in exchange for a Sudanese government promise of more protection for its staff. "If we can have minimum assurances that our staff will be safe, we will do more missions to the field," Spindler told a news briefing. He said the UNHCR would "scale up protection and camp management" to help those uprooted by four years of militia and rebel fighting, but offered no other details. Some 2.5 million people have been displaced throughout the three Darfur states since rebels there rose up against the government in February 2003, saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers there. Fighting with government-backed militia has seen homes burnt, villages destroyed and civilians killed in what the United Nations calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Washington says the violence amounts to genocide. The Khartoum rejects the term and calls the militia outlaws. Guterres, during his four-day visit to Sudan which ended on Thursday, also promised more funds for some 136,000 refugees from Eritrea and Ethiopia housed for decades in the east. UNCHR's first refugee camp in eastern Sudan was established in 1968, and small numbers of Eritreans still arrive at the camps regularly, amid continued instability over an unresolved border dispute with Ethiopia. Guterres expressed "deep concern" for those living in the camps, the UNHCR spokesman said. "He was shocked by the poor conditions in which they live, without adequate water supplies, limited access to health services, poor sanitation and malnourishment, among other problems," Spindler said. (For more information about emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44 207 542 5791)
