KHARTOUM, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Darfur rebels on Friday accused Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s army of killing 27 people in a week-long campaign of air and ground assaults on their positions, as peace efforts in the arid region continued to flounder.
Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s army dismissed the accusation, saying its only recent action had been a single attack on a non-rebel armed group that had been harassing travellers in a different part of the territory.
A series of ceasefires, peace deals and negotiations has failed to stop fighting in Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s western Darfur region which surged in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s president Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges of masterminding genocide and war crimes during Khartoum&${esc.hash}39;s brutal campaign to crush the uprising. Khartoum refuses to recognise the court.
The rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) told Reuters government troops, bombers and attack helicopters had launched a series of attacks on their positions around the village of Jawa in the remote Eastern Jabel Marra region from Sunday onwards.
"This week there has been very big fighting. All this time the government air forces are bombarding the areas all the day and today this morning ... four villages were burned," said SLA spokesman Ibrahim al-Helwu by phone from Paris.
Darfur&${esc.hash}39;s joint U.N./African Union UNAMID peacekeeping mission told Reuters it had no information to back up the rebel report.
One U.N. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mission had received reports from a reliable source of clashes between the army and SLA on Monday around the villages of Jawa and Suni but could not confirm them independently.
Humanitarian workers said the government had imposed a near blanket travel ban on parts of South Darfur, including land around the mountainous Jabel Marra region, following a surge of fighting early this year. U.N. and government aid agencies managed to stage their first mission to the area in six months early in September.
Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s army spokesman accused the rebels of making up the reports. "There is no war in this area. There has been no fighting in Darfur," he said.
"The Sudanese army has been using the road between Deribat (in eastern Jabel Marra) and Nyala (the capital of south Darfur state). Whenever they (the rebels) see us in an area, they accuse us of attacking villages."
Both the SLA, led by Paris-based Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur, and the insurgent Justice and Equality Movement are boycotting peace talks with Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s government in the Qatari capital Doha.
The separate Liberation and Justice Movement -- an umbrella group of smaller rebel factions -- said it was hoping to resume the protracted negotiations in Qatar on Saturday or Sunday. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens; editing by Andrew Roche)
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