Nairobi/Khartoum - They distribute food and medicine, nurse starving children back to health, help traumatized children and raped women to cope with their experiences.

In the eyes of Sudan's government, however, many of the relief agencies that have been working in the embattled western Sudanese province of Darfur are a fifth column - informers for Western governments and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which on Wednesday issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

The government in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, reacted swiftly. It revoked the work permits of 13 relief agencies, including Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, CARE and Save the Children. A government spokesman did not rule out the possibility that other aid groups, currently under scrutiny, would also have to leave the country.

The expulsions are a blow not only to the aid workers, who must now hastily pack their belongings and go. Foremost, they hit the people of Darfur, its refugees and war victims. The expelled agencies warn of a looming humanitarian catastrophe for the province's long-suffering people.

Sudan's action also poses a dilemma for various United Nations organizations such as the World Food Programme (WFP). Though they are the ones that bring food into the country, relief agencies organize the so-called "last mile": distribution of the food in refugee camps and villages affected by the conflict between the government and rebel groups.

"Four of our partner organizations, which provide for a total of 1.1 million people, have been expelled," said WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon in Nairobi. "The UN agencies lack the capacity to assume this task." Care for 5,500 severely undernourished children can no longer be ensured either, Smerden said, adding, "This will definitely have serious consequences in Darfur."

"It's nothing but retaliation against millions of people in Darfur," remarked Georgette Gagnon, Africa director of Human Rights Watch.

"Now is no time for political games - millions of human lives are at risk," said Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty International's Africa programme. "The population of Darfur, which has borne the brunt of the conflict for six years, is now being punished by its own government for the arrest warrant."

According to the UN, more than 300,000 people have been killed during the past six years in Darfur, where mounted Arab militias continue to attack the predominantly black African population, and government troops bomb civilian targets and humanitarian facilities.

Some 2.7 million Darfuris have been living for years in refugee camps and depend on international food aid for survival. A joint peacekeeping force supplied by the UN and African Union is far from able to patrol the entire province, which is the size of France, to protect civilians from attack.

The expulsion of international relief workers will deprive the people of Darfur not only of urgently needed aid. Without the doctors and nurses, well builders and psychologists, there will be no witnesses to draw the world's attention to the plight of the people in Darfur. (dpa)