BERLIN, Sept 10 (AFP) - Germany believes the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region could turn into genocide and wants the UN Security Council to keep pressure on the Sudanese government, an official said Friday.
The government sees a "humanitarian and human rights tragedy with the potential for genocide," foreign ministry spokesman Walter Lindner told reporters.
"It is obvious that the conflict has ethnic dimensions, that is clear from witnesses and corroborates the observations made on the ground by Kerstin Mueller," the German special envoy to Sudan, he said.
The Sudanese government has been accused of arming and backing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, which have rampaged through the western Darfur region for the past 19 months.
An estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million more uprooted in a campaign against Darfur's black African population, which began in February 2003 when Khartoum and the Janjaweed cracked down on a rebel uprising.
"Pressure has to be maintained, we are profoundly preoccupied by the situation," Lindner said, adding that a proposed US draft resolution "is good, but of course needs a consensus within the Security Council."
So far, the 15-nation Council is divided over the US proposition, which hangs the threat of sanctions over Sudan, with Russia, Pakistan and especially China voicing strong objections to it.
The resolution, like a similar measure passed July 30, demands that the government in Khartoum disarm and rein in the Janjaweed, and take other steps to end the violence or face international sanctions.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has described the atrocities as genocide.
He told US senators that evidence compiled by the United States "concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring."
The United Nations says the crisis is the world's worst current humanitarian catastrophe.