By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (Reuters) - Prospects for peace in Darfur have grown more remote amid declining security, worse conditions for refugees and reluctance by the warring parties to negotiate, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said on Wednesday.

A U.N. and African Union peace force known as UNAMID was gradually deploying in the violence-torn west Sudanese region, but it was still too weak to carry out its mandate, Jean-Marie Guehenno told the Security Council in one of his bleakest assessments.

Guehenno described as a "deeply disturbing development" an attack on Khartoum last weekend by the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement and said he was very concerned that UNAMID had failed to spot the fighters heading for Sudan's capital.

"The incident underscores the serious shortfalls in the mission's resources, especially aerial reconnaissance capabilities," he said.

Equally worrying, he said, was an unconfirmed report received by UNAMID that another rebel group, SLA-Unity, had assembled more than 40 vehicles to attack the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, where the mission is headquartered.

In Sudan, SLA-Unity has said no attack is planned.

Recent clashes between government forces and rebels and among rebel factions, growing volatility on the Sudan-Chad border and increased banditry meant "the security situation in Darfur is deteriorating at an alarming rate," Guehenno said.

The violence had forced more than 150,000 people to flee their homes this year alone, he said.

The clashes and a recent decision forced on the U.N. World Food Program by truck hijackings to halve rations to 3 million people it feeds in Darfur meant the situation of civilians there was "growing more precarious by the day."

POLITICAL WILL

In the past year, Guehenno said, "the situation in Darfur has grown infinitely more complex, and prospects for peace seem more remote.

"The parties are not demonstrating the political will to abandon the military option, engage in negotiations or fully cooperate with UNAMID and the humanitarian community."

U.N. officials estimate that as many as 300,000 people may have been killed in the five-year-old Darfur conflict. Khartoum says the figure is only about 10,000.

Peace talks in Libya last October got nowhere. U.N. and AU envoys are trying to bring the Sudanese government and five rebel groups together in Geneva by the end of May but those talks will be limited to improving the security situation.

Guehenno, due to step down at the end of June after eight years in the job, said that despite the problems the U.N. would press ahead with deploying UNAMID, which is meant ultimately to consist of 26,000 troops and police.

At present its strength stands at just over 9,000. Under a revised schedule it now aims to be 80-percent deployed by the end of this year. But Guehenno admitted that even that figure was an "ambitious calculation."

The mission has been plagued by the reluctance of contributors to supply key assets such as helicopters, disputes with Khartoum over details, and general insecurity that means it takes seven weeks for supplies to travel the 1,400 miles (2,200 km) from Port Sudan to Darfur. (Editing by Xavier Briand)

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