There are reports of continued heavy fighting between Sudanese government troops and rebel forces for the control of the key southern city of Wau.

The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army said it seized the city on Thursday. But it now acknowledges that intense fighting is going on.

"I will not now at this time say we are in complete control," said SPLA spokesman Justin Arop.

"It is still a fight for control of the city."

The fighting is are centred around the airport which the government has been using for supplies and troop reinforcements.

The Sudanese authorities say the army still controls Wau, but the main railway line linking it to the capital Khartoum in the north is reported to be in rebels hands.

Wau is a strategically vital town in the south. It is the government's main centre for supplying its forces in the region, with an important railway terminus and a road to the first town of the south, Juba.

The rebels are hoping to gain territory and military victories before peace talks which are due to re-open with the government in April.

At peace talks in Nairobi last November, the government said it wanted a federation of north and south and accepted the principle of a referendum on self-determination.

The SPLA wants a much looser link between the northern and southern regions and a vote on self-determination in two years.

Most of the south is under the control of the rebels.

Africa's longest-running insurgency pits the Khartoum government in the mainly Arab and Moslem north against rebels who claim to represent the mainly Christian and black African south.

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