The Eritrean National Forces Alliance (NFA) took the decision at a meeting here Monday to spare the Sudanese government embarrassment in view of the current normalisation process between Khartoum and Asmara, As-Sahafi Ad-Dawli daily said.

It quoted NFA sources as saying that, unlike Ethiopia, the Sudanese government "has offered little support" to the Eritrean opposition.

The daily said the NFA, which groups 11 Eritrean opposition factions, wound up here Monday a three-day conference which decided to boost the political, diplomatic and military struggle against "the dictatorship" in Asmara.

The conference, however, stressed that the NFA would pursue a peaceful solution to its conflict with the present Eritrean government, As-Sahafi Ad-Dawli said.

The NFA rejected a plan by the Eritrean government for repatriation of Eritrean refugees in Sudan, fearing that they would be recruited for the war against Ethiopia, the daily said.

The NFA noted that the Eritrean regime had previously opposed repatriation but had now decided to welcome the refugees despite famine conditions in Eritrea and the war with Ethiopia.

"The regime has chosen arid areas near the warfront for the refugees to settle in," the conference was cited by As-Sahafi Ad-Dawli as noting.

It decided to launch a diplomatic offensive through contacts and petitions to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, governments and organisations to prevent the repatriation of the refugees at the present time.

Speaking at the Africa-Europe summit in Cairo, Nielsen said he had discussed the looming food crisis with the presidents of Eritrea and Djibouti and the foreign minister of Ethiopia. Nielsen said the European Union and other donors planned to send some 800,000 tonnes of food aid to Ethiopia. "We are getting organized and we see this (famine) as a big threat coming," he told a news conference.

The United Nations on Monday warned that up to 16 million people in northeast Africa were threatened by starvation after poor rains, successive crop failures and population displacement due partly to armed conflicts in the region.

"Everybody is following this situation with very great concern...If we now can plan in a reasonably professional way actually to move 800,000 tonnes, that's a good start," Nielsen said.

"This issue was already on our daily agenda before the summit but I have used this opportunity to discuss directly with the countries involved. We are also dealing with Djibouti in order to make possible the big logistic operation," he added.

Because of war, delivery on shore would probably be restricted to the port of Djibouti, making actual delivery a much greater problem than obtaining emergency food.

"If we had peace and normal relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, then the harbor of Masawa would also be available and the problem more manageable," Nielsen said.

"We have people from the European Commission on site in the Horn of Africa today trying to assess the situation," the commissioner said. "It is indeed a major operation."

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome warned on Monday that parts of southeastern Ethiopia, northern Kenya and several parts of Somalia were experiencing grave food shortages. "The threat of starvation is severe in parts of eastern Africa with nearly 16 million people in need of emergency food assistance," the FAO said in a report.

Hardest hit was Ethiopia, where more than eight million people are at risk of famine this year, while in Kenya nearly 2.7 million people are facing severe food shortages, FAO said.

"Only a massive international effort in the coming months in support of the affected populations can avert further human suffering and loss of life," the U.N agency added.

"Some eight million Ethiopians face the risk of starvation, and (in) some areas, in particular, in the south east, there have been reports of deaths," he told the BBC.

Ethiopia is the worst-affected of the seven East African countries where the third drought-induced crop failure in three years has left a total of 12.4 million people in need of relief food assistance.

The World Food Programme (WFP) plans to distribute 371,050 tonnes of food this year to just over 6.1 million people in the region at a cost of 205 million dollars.

The United States also committed itself to sending more than 400,000 tonnes of food aid to Ethiopia, while Japan agreed to extend 7.3 million dollars to purchase agri-chemicals and farming machinery.

But, the Ethiopian prime minister said the amount promised was not enough and urged western countries to act more quickly to avoid a repeat of the terrible famines which ravaged the country in 1984 and 1985, leaving around 800,000 people dead.

"The other donors, in particular the EU and countries in Europe, need to be a bit more forthcoming than they have been so far," he said.

Zenawi admitted that Addis Ababa had used relief aid in its border war with neighbouring Eritrea during the 1984-1985 famine, but guaranteed that such an act would not be repeated. "We have given assurances that this will not happen again," he said.

Zenawi's comments came a day after the United Nations issued a warning that the Horn of Africa countries would be affected by a big famine if the current drought continued, and appealed for more help from its donor countries.

"We are facing the real possibility in two months' time of catastrophe if more donor aid does not arrive," Carolyn McAskie, the UN's acting chief coordinator for humanitarian affairs, said in New York.

She said that UN agencies had appealed for 190 million dollars (199 million euros) for food assistance in Ethiopia this year but had so far received only half this amount.

She added that About 940,000 tonnes of food might be needed if the drought continued and the planting season failed.

"The funding situation elsewhere is similarly dire," she said. "There has been no response whatsoever against requirements for food in Eritrea."

The WFP chief, Catherine Bertini is to embark on a nine-day visit to Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Eritrea as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy.