Nairobi/Khartoum - The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) in Sudan's restive Darfur province said Monday it was checking up on claims that Sudanese troops had killed dozens in a refugee camp.

The BBC, quoting a rebel spokesman, said that Sudanese troops opened fire killing 27 people in the Kalma camp, where almost 100,000 people live after fleeing fighting.

"We have our people inside the camp and they are assessing the situation," UNAMID spokesman Noureddne Mezni told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

Various sources put the death toll in the camp, which is near Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, both higher and lower.

The Sudanese government claims that rebel supporters are hiding among the refugees, but Kalma residents say that Khartoum-backed militia persistently raid the camp.

The conflict in Darfur began when black tribesmen took up arms against what they called decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum.

The UN says up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced by five years of conflict.

The Sudanese government has been accused of using the Janjaweed militia to commit atrocities against Darfur's black population and suppress the rebels.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in July asked for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir on war crimes charges relating to Darfur. (dpa)