BRUSSELS: The European Union threatened Sudan with sanctions yesterday if it refused to allow UN peacekeepers into war-torn Darfur, but rights groups and analysts said the warning was not enough to stop the killings.

Raising strong concerns about the "intolerable" situation in Sudan’s remote west, EU foreign ministers urged other donors to provide funding for the struggling African Union mission there, while the EU executive said it had no more cash to support it.

Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5mn driven from their homes during the four-year-old conflict Washington calls genocide, a charge Sudan denies.

An ill-equipped African Union force has failed to stem the violence and protect aid workers. EU foreign ministers said Khartoum should accept a UN plan for a hybrid African Union-UN force in Darfur.

"The (EU) Council expresses its readiness to consider further measures notably in the UN framework against any party which obstructs its implementation," the ministers said in a joint statement diplomats said was a reference to sanctions.

Aid groups and analysts said the statement would not be sufficient to stop the killing and the EU should threaten Khartoum with a specific list of sanctions.

"They need to be much stronger," Nick Grono, of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said, adding that the EU should say if Khartoum does not allow the hybrid force, the bloc would target Sudan’s oil revenue and impose travel bans on key officials. – Reuters