A humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, once called the world’s worst, appears to have eased, with the death toll from disease dropping, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday.

Although more information was needed, there were indications the numbers dying from hunger and infectious diseases amongst the western Sudan region’s more than 1.5 million refugees had fallen significantly, WHO crisis chief David Nabarro said.

“The kinds of information that I am receiving on water supply, sanitation, food access and health services ... would mean that the death rates are likely to have reduced,” he told journalists.

“We have almost certainly gone down to within the threshold limit for a humanitarian crisis,” Nabarro added.

The U.N. health agency had not been able to carry out a fresh study of mortality rates within the various refugee camps inside Darfur, largely because the continuing insecurity made it difficult for its international staffers to move about, the official said.

But it had probably dropped to below half the 10,000 a month that the WHO estimated in October when it calculated that some 70,000 had succumbed to disease and malnutrition since March.

“We have not had the kind of dysentery, diarrhoea and hepatitis outbreaks during October, November and December that we had in July, August and September,” Nabarro said.

The refugees were forced to flee when fighting erupted in early 2003 between rebels, the government in Khartoum and armed militias, which the government has been accused of supporting.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels, but denies any links to the Janjaweed militias, who are accused of widespread abuses including mass killings and rapes.