U.N. team in Sudan to investigate genocide reports

EL FASHER, Sudan, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A U.N. team has arrived in Sudan to investigate whether genocide has occurred in Darfur.

George Somerwill, a U.N. spokesman in Sudan, told Reuters the international commission of inquiry arrived late on Sunday and would travel to Darfur in the west of Sudan on Wednesday. He said they were due to return to the capital Khartoum on Nov. 20.

"It is to begin its investigation of reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur by all parties, including to determine whether or not acts of genocide have occurred and to identify the perpetrators of such violations," he said of the team's mandate.

Somerwill did not give details of the make-up of the team. In October U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan named a five-member panel led by Italian judge Antonio Cassese to investigate whether genocide has taken place in Darfur. The panel was created at the request of the U.N. Security Council.

Cassese was the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a court based in The Hague that is looking into suspected war crimes in the Balkans including during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.

Two U.N. human rights watchdogs told the U.N. Security Council in September that war crimes had probably occurred on a "large and systematic scale" in Darfur.