A UN report has accused the Sudanese government and Arab militia of colluding in the systematic starving of refugees in the Darfur region.

The report said a United Nations team found "appalling" and "outrageous" conditions when it visited the town of Kailek less than two weeks ago.

Pro-government Arab militias had been preventing food deliveries and stopped anyone leaving the town, it added.

One aid worker described what happened there as the "politics of starvation".

Inhumane conditions

Eight or nine children were reported to have been dying from malnutrition every day.

The report said women and girls were raped and described inhumane sanitary conditions and a lack of medical treatment.

Members of the UN team were said to be "visibly shaken" by circumstances in the town.

Refugees first sought shelter in Kailek, the biggest settlement in the area, after Arab militias started attacking nearby villages.

The Janjaweed militia is accused of holding the town hostage

The horseback militia known as the Janjaweed surrounded the village, effectively holding 1,700 people hostage.

The UN report says that as food began to run out, residents were forced to start paying the militia to leave the village to look for supplies.

The refugees were later moved to a nearby town, Kass, in advance of a visit by another UN team.

The survivors in Kass have been camping in a disused secondary school.

They appeared dazed and traumatised, says the BBC's Ishbel Matheson.

One three-year-old girl lying on open ground was little more than a skeleton. There was no medicine to treat her and very little food, our correspondent adds.

The local authorities in Kass deny that they colluded in the siege, but survivors tell a different story.

They are adamant that they saw government forces working alongside the militia.

The UN report said it believed there were other villages like Kailek in western Sudan, where civilians were living in similar conditions.