By DIANNA CAHN Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Civil war in Sudan has caused the deaths of more than 1.9 million people since

1983, a humanitarian agency says.

The 15-year war for control of the southern and central part of Africa's largest nation has killed one in five

southern Sudanese, the Washington-based U.S. Committee For Refugees said in a report issued Thursday.

The deaths were either the result of the war itself, war-induced famine, or direct government or rebel

policies, the report said.

In the first six months of 1998, more than 70,000 people died, it said.

About 80 percent of southern Sudan's estimated 5 million people have been displaced at one time or another

since 1983 by fighting between rebels from the animist and Christian south and forces loyal to the

government of the Arab and Islamic north for control over southern Sudan, according to the report.

``Sudan's civil war has been characterized by an incremental ferocity that has left untouched practically no

one ... in southern Sudan,'' the report said.

It said about 4 million people are internally displaced by the war and another 350,000 are living as refugees

in neighboring countries.

The report was compiled by consultant Millard Burr, a former director of logistics for the U.S. Agency for

International Development in Sudan.

Burr gathered the data from dozens of documents and internal reports from many of the 40 aid agencies

operating in Sudan, Jeff Drumtra, a senior policy analyst with the humanitarian agency, said in a telephone

interview from Washington.

``No one pretends that this is precise; it's a working document,'' he said. ``Whether the death toll is 1.9

million or 1.8 or 2 million, no one will ever know. This is a fairly conservative estimate.''

In a reference to deaths that resulted from genocide, the report said that while both the government and rebels

have committed atrocities against the southern Sudanese population, the scale of government-induced killings

far surpassed those carried out by any other perpetrator.

The report said the government has systematically blocked food assistance to southern Sudanese populations,

has attacked villages and has driven large population groups to areas where they could not survive.

``These are not people killed in crossfire,'' said Drumtra. ``It's a very deliberate strategy on the part of the

government of Sudan to depopulate large parts of southern Sudan.''

He said that while the report cites the government as the key killer in Sudan's war, even those who don't

agree should recognize the scope of the war's horror.

``What is going on in Sudan, and what has been going on for the past 15 years is virtually unprecedented in

terms of the devastation to human lives, property and society in the south,'' he said.

``Even by the standards of Africa, even by the standards of war ... this loss of life and destruction of

economy and society is far beyond the line.''

AP-NY-12-11-98 0135EST