Paramilitary forces in Sudan's Darfur have mutinied, the interior ministry said on Sunday, as a United States diplomat expressed concern that security in the western region is worsening. "A small group from the Central Reserve Police started a mutiny," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SUNA news agency. It said the mutineers were from the West Darfur unit of the special police and were based in the state capital El Geneina near the Chadian border.

Sudan's defence minister, who is wanted for alleged war crimes in Darfur, said on Wednesday that improving relations with South Sudan will help to "end" a decade-old rebellion in the western region. "The implementation of the cooperation agreements with South Sudan will affect security in Darfur," Defence Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein said in a national security briefing to parliament. "It will give us a chance to surround the insurgents and help us to end the rebellion."

Qatar pledged $500 million in aid to rebuild Sudan's war-ravaged western region of Darfur, the official QNA news agency on Monday quoted a minister as saying. "Qatar has pledged an amount of $500 million as grants and contributions for rebuilding Darfur," said the gas-rich emirate's minister of state for cabinet affairs, Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Mahmud. In February 2010, Qatar had promised to establish a bank with a capital of one billion dollars to develop Darfur.

Around 12,500 Sudanese refugees fleeing inter-ethnic violence in the troubled Darfur region have crossed into Chad over the last four weeks, the UN refugee agency said Saturday. "For around a month (the border town of) Tissi has registered a huge influx of Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region" said Aminata Gueye, the representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Chad. A joint UN-government mission sent to Tissi had registered some 12,500 people, which UNHCR was unprepared for, Gueye said.