The UN's humanitarian chief said on Thursday that the situation in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region was becoming more and more dangerous as the number of violent attacks kept increasing.

"It's going from really bad to catastrophic in Darfur," Jan Egeland, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told a press conference in Geneva.

He said fighting had actually increased since a peace deal was signed three month ago between Sudan's government and Darfur's main rebel group.

"It has been particularly terrible among rebel factions fighting each other... and that's led to tens of thousands of people being displaced, and sexual abuse and many other types of violations," Egeland said.

According to the offficial, nine UN aid workers have been killed in the past four to five weeks in the Darfur region.

"We cannot keep up with the situation even though we have the biggest humanitarian operation on earth going in Darfur," he said.

More than 200,000 have been killed in the Darfur region since 2003, when ethnic tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government.

The peace deal, signed on May 5 in Nigeria, was supposed to help end the conflict, but instead has triggered more fighting between factions of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army.

The UN, aid groups and African Union peacekeepers say rebel factions are seeking to gain advantage before peace takes hold.

A UN report said on Wednesday that the peace deal was "doomed to failure" unless the Sudanese government provided more support.

Source: Xinhua