A weekend of heavy fighting greeted Nelson Mandela’s band of roving diplomats, world leaders and entrepreneurs – The Elders – who arrived in Sudan yesterday in the latest attempt to bring peace to Darfur.

Militias attacked an African Union base in the town of Haskanita on Saturday killing 10 peacekeepers, the heaviest casualties suffered by the AU mission. Fifty peacekeepers were still missing.

Hours later a government Antonov plane resumed bombing, attacking a rebel town in northern Darfur, despite promises of a ceasefire.

Although Mr Mandela is too frail to travel, Jimmy Carter, the former US president, Desmond Tutu, Nobel laureate, and Sir Richard Branson are among the team due to visit Darfur later this week.

They will also meet the Sudanese President, aid groups and diplomats in Khartoum in an attempt to ease the deployment of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force and lay the groundwork for peace talks in Tripoli later this month.

But they will find a conflict that is rapidly spiralling into anarchy. Aid agencies say they will be forced to withdraw if security does not improve.

Several rebel factions have said they will not attend next month’s talks unless the joint United Nations and African Union force is deployed first.

Commander Ibrahim Abdullah Al “Hello”, who holds the tiny village of En Siro for his branch of the Sudan Liberation Army, claimed the Government was pouring arms into Janjawid encampments in northern Darfur.

He said his leader Abdulwahid Mohamed el-Nur – who commands huge support among civilians in Darfur’s aid camps – would not be attending the talks.

“If he goes to Libya without peace then we will still be here, we will still be fighting,” he said sitting on a lopsided bench in the village’s disused school hut. “The root of the problem is still here - the insecurity.”

An AU force of some 7,000 soldiers and monitors has failed to bring peace to Darfur. It has found itself outgunned by rebels and the government’s proxy army of Janjawid militias.

Rebel and government spokesmen accused each other of Saturday’s attack on the AU. In the past rebels have more often been responsible for taking on the AU.

Hours later rebel targets around the town of Kuma in northern Darfur were bombed, according to aid workers and SLA commanders in the area.

Earlier this year the Khartoum government, under intense international pressure, agreed to allow a joint UN-AU force into its war-torn western-region. It has also agreed to attend peace talks in the Libyan capital beginning on October 27.

President Omar al-Bashir has told both Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and Pope Benedict that he will declare a ceasefire before negotiations. Doubts remain, however, about his commitment to the process.

Bombing of rebel and civilian targets resumed in September after the annual rains. Government Antonovs have been spotted overflying En Siro’s tumbledown mud huts earlier in the day.

Days before my visit, an Antonov had bombed rebel-held villages elsewhere in northern Darfur, in an attack confirmed by African Union monitors.

At the same time, a rising tide of insecurity and lawlessness is hampering aid operations in Darfur. En Siro, like many other villages, is cut off from emergency supplies of food and medicine.

Aid agencies can make only fleeting visits by helicopter as the roads are too dangerous.

Carjackings have become a daily occurrence throughout Darfur. Last week World Vision withdrew all non-essential workers after three members of staff were shot during an attack on an aid convoy.

The head of Oxfam in Sudan, Caroline Nursey, said the charity would consider pulling out altogether if security worsened.

There is little chance of security improving before peace talks, according to analysts.

“Every time we have had talks before it has been preceded by a build-up of government and rebel activity,” said a United Nations official in Darfur. “We see no reason why this wouldn’t be the case again.”

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