WASHINGTON — Actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow called on Wednesday for peacekeepers to be sent immediately to halt "genocidal violence" that she said was spreading from Sudan's Darfur province into neighbouring eastern Chad."We're seeing atrocities of an indescribable kind," said Farrow, just back from a visit to Chad after an earlier trip to Darfur.

In a telephone interview from her home in Connecticut, Farrow said 60 villages were burned to the ground, forcing thousands to flee. She said she found some people "clustered under trees, dazed and terrified".

It was apparent, she said, that the war being carried out by Arab militias in Darfur since 2003 now encompasses Chad's eastern region with militias from both countries banding together.

Refugees from Darfur who fled across the border to Chad, Farrow said, are being terrorised anew. The victims are not combatants, she said, but innocent villagers.

The attackers are "heavily, heavily armed" by the Sudanese government and defenders are often equipped only with bows and arrows, Farrow said.