Al-Fasher, Sudan ? Sudan’s minister for humanitarian affairs said Thursday his government had made “serious progress” in improving security and humanitarian relief in the troubled region of Darfur, as a U.N. team prepared an assessment that could decide whether the African country would be penalized.

“The security situation has improved greatly. The delegation here has been enlightened with regard to the humanitarian effort,” Ibrahim Hamid told The Associated Press after showing U.N. officials a dusty police outpost protecting some 43,000 people at the Abu Shouk camp.

“The delivery of relief assistance is now reaching those who need it by 100 percent. The police are now deployed in the areas … and I see no possible problems in this joint evaluation,” he said.

Young policemen in blue fatigues shouldered their rifles in the blistering desert sun as U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator Erick De Mul toured the camp, leading one of three delegations fanning out across the France-sized region to assess Sudan’s efforts toward ending the crisis.

“This is an objective verification and the U.N.’s mind has not been made up,” De Mul told AP shortly after landing in Al-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

Tribal leaders sheltering in a straw hut told De Mul there was no shortage of food in the camp but complained of a chronic lack of firewood to cook the rations provided by international aid agencies.

The United Nations has given Sudan until Aug. 30 to tackle what it calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis or face economic and diplomatic punishment. Mostly Arab militias known as the Janjaweed are accused of killing tens of thousands of black Africans and pushing more than 1.4 million from their homes.

De Mul met with U.N. aid workers and a Sudanese government manager at the Abu Shouk camp. De Mul said earlier obstacles to humanitarian workers and supplies had been removed.

“We look forward to a successful mission. That success depends not on us but on what you have been starting to do,” he told local officials.

At Abu Shouk, camp manager El Fateh Abdel Aziz said his camp, patrolled by Sudanese police, was safe. But aid workers there have said women in the camp were afraid to leave to collect firewood and that the police themselves were a threat, with some forcing sexual favors from the women.

A second U.N. team led by special representative Jan Pronk was focusing on West Darfur, while U.N. deputy special representative Manuel Aranda Da Silva was assigned to South Darfur.

A Sudanese boy, Bashir Abdel Aziz, 7, carries drinking water, drawn from pumps provided by international aid agencies at Abu Shouk camp, in North Darfur, Sudan, where more than 40,000 displaced people are receiving food and shelter from international aid agencies. A U.N. team is verifying progress in improving security in the western state of Darfur as the Monday deadline for the government to disarm Arab militias approaches.