The United Nations' special envoy to Sudan says the civil war in Darfur that has already killed up to 100,000 people is intensifying and spreading.

"We may move into a period of intense violence unless swift action is taken and new approaches are considered," Jan Pronk warned Tuesday.

Jan Pronk, UN special envoy to Sudan. (AP file photo)
Jan Pronk, UN special envoy to Sudan. (AP file photo)

More than two million people have become refugees because of ethnic cleansing and mass rapes in the west of the North African country, where armed Arab militia members allegedly supported by the Sudanese government have been targeting black Africans.

"The armed groups are re-arming, and the conflict is spreading outside Darfur," Pronk told the UN's Security Council. "Large quantities of arms have been carried into Darfur in defiance of the Security Council decision taken in July."

That Security Council measure at first threatened sanctions against Sudan if the government in Khartoum didn't restrain the action of the Janjaweed militias in Darfur, but the resolution was later watered down.

Pronk said the efforts of African peacekeepers stationed in Sudan aren't having any effect.

The peacekeepers are so hobbled by a limited mandate that they're condemned to simply watching the war from the sidelines, Pronk said.

The recent peace agreement ending Sudan's other civil war, a much longer-running conflict between its Arab north and African south, isn't making a difference either, he said.

There have been new raids on small towns and villages, increased incidents of banditry, and more looting, the Security Council was told. Meanwhile, new rebel movements are emerging and launching attacks in the vicinity of oil facilities in the western part of the country.

Before the Dec. 26 tsunami hit 11 countries rimming the Indian Ocean, Darfur was considered the world's most pressing humanitarian challenge.

The U.S. Congress and Senate both passed unanimous motions in July calling the war a "genocide."