NDJAMENA, May 8 Chad government forces fought desert battles on Friday against rebels who were stepping up an offensive against President Idriss Deby, with more than 150 reported dead in two days of conflict.

The fighting, centred on the eastern town of Am-Dam, has heightened concerns among UN agencies and aid groups caring for about 450,000 refugees from Sudan and the Central African Republic.

France, which has troops in Chad, was anxiously watching events. The European Union and African Union both condemned the rebel offensive.

Chad has bombed the rebels from planes and helicopters since they crossed the Sudanese border on Monday. The government accuses Sudan of backing the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR) rebels, who have vowed to take the capital Ndjamena.

The rebels, who claim to have more than 1,000 all-terrain vehicles to carry their forces across the desert, said “several dozen” government troops had been killed or wounded and tanks destroyed in clashes early on Friday around Houaich, near Am-Dam.

The government confirmed new clashes and said 60 rebel vehicles had been destroyed or captured. This was denied by the rebels.

The army said 125 rebels and 21 soldiers had been killed, 30 government troops wounded, and 152 rebels taken prisoner in clashes on Thursday at Deressa, half-way between Am-Dam and Abeche, the main city in eastern Chad.

But the fighting spared Abeche, some 600 kms east of the Chadian capital, and Goz Beida, a town about 100 kms south of the battlegrounds. Both are bases for relief agencies, and Abeche is the eastern headquarters for the Chad army.

The rebels say they occupy Am-Dam, which is about 100 kms south of Abeche.

A UN military mission deployed in Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic to protect refugees and oversee the safety of aid work was considering the redeployment of relief staff withdrawn from camps earlier in the week, a spokesman said.

“The situation seems to be growing stable around Goz Beida,” where the UN stepped up military patrols this week, said Michel Bonnardeaux, the spokesman for the MINURCAT mission.

“Everything seems to be getting back to normal. We're seeing to what extent we can redeploy.” Meanwhile, MINURCAT has stepped up military patrols during the past week.

Bonnardeaux and staff at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva said that essential relief work was continuing in the region for more than 250,000 refugees from Sudan, 166,000 displaced Chadians and local people.

Chad's Interior Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bashir has accused Sudanese President Omar El-Beshir of ordering “mercenaries” to attack Chad and vowed the rebels will be wiped out.

Peace between Chad and Sudan is regarded as essential to any lasting settlement to a six-year-old uprising in Sudan's western Darfur region.

Deby seized power in a similar rebellion in 1990, also launched from Sudan.

He was first elected president in a vote in 1996, re-elected in 2001 and stood for a third term in 2006, when the opposition boycotted the poll.

In February 2008, rebels battled their way to the gates of the presidential palace in Ndjamena before being beaten back. There are now new worries in the capital.

Elise Mariam, a fish seller in Ndjamena, one of thousands who fled the city last year, said “Since I heard that war is back, I've been really frightened.

“I abandoned everything and lost it all. I don't want to live through that again.... The international community should act fast.” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana led international calls Friday for an end to the offensive.

“I firmly condemn the acts of violence by armed groups coming from Sudan in the east of Chad,” the EU's top diplomat said in a statement. “I call on them to renounce violence and begin negotiations with the Chad government.”

The African Union's peace and security commissioner Ramtane Lamara issued a new “condemnation of all kinds of anti-constitutional change of government, and acts of destabilisation.”—AFP