UK aid flight arrives in Sudan

Aid agencies fear disease will spread through makeshift camps

An emergency aid flight from the UK carrying supplies for refugees has landed in Sudan.

The cargo plane left Manston Airport in Kent on Sunday evening, bound for the Darfur region.

It had been scheduled to depart on Friday but had to be delayed because of "sensitivities on the ground".

It carried emergency water and sanitation equipment from charity Oxfam to help thousands of refugees who have fled their homes because of fighting.

A spokesman for Oxfam said the risk of disease was increasing in the camps.

The flight from the former RAF airfield near Ramsgate was Oxfam's third such aid mission to Sudan in the past few weeks.

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The cargo included 30 tonnes of water and sanitation equipment worth £83,000.

The UN has described Darfur as the world's worst humanitarian crisis - food, water and medicines are running low in the refugee camps.

Oxfam says the equipment will be used to try to stop disease spreading and to provide clean water.

The charity's humanitarian director, Paul Smith-Lomas, told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme many people had fled "in what they were standing up in".

He said: "There are people without food, there are people who have no shelter - it's a very desperate situation.

"We know that more money could help us to move faster and that can make a difference and save more lives sooner."

Oxfam is one of 11 charities in the UK involved in the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, raising money for the Sudan crisis.

About a million people have fled their homes and some 10,000 have been killed since the conflict started last year.

Rebel groups accuse the government of backing the Janjaweed Arab militia, who are oppressing black Africans in the region in favour of Arabs.