Police caught nearly 1,200 people trying to reach the Canary Islands in overcrowded boats that left from the west African nation of Mauritania, setting a record for the weekend, officials said .

At least 12 boats reached the islands in the span of 36 hours, Civil Guard officials said. All the migrants, including children, were in good health, they said. Some 674 people arrived Saturday and 522 reached shore Sunday.

With routes through Morocco being gradually sealed, the rising wave of African migration to Europe has been pushed hundreds of miles south, forcing many to make a perilous voyage in open boats to Spain?s Canary Islands, their gateway to the prosperous European Union.

More than 20,000 Africans have been intercepted so far this year in the archipelago, and the total for August was around 6,000 compared to 4,751 for all of last year, according to Spanish authorities. Spain has asked the European Union, theUnited Nations and the international community to assist with the situation.

Spanish Deputy Prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega traveled to Brussels, Belgium, last week to press EU officials for more help and express Spanish frustration with an EU plan to monitor African waters from the air and sea. It was approved in May and has yet to begin in earnest.

The Spanish government said Friday it is organizing a conference of southern European countries to seek a joint response to the crisis.

The ministers will talk about issues such as coastal surveillance, rescue operations and repatriation, and have a proposal ready for a summit of European Union leaders in December.

Last year authorities caught 4,751 African migrants trying to reach the Canary Islands, the vast majority packed into narrow, open boats that sometimes take weeks to make the dangerous voyages. Thousands more are believed to have died in the choppy seas.

Those who make it are kept in holding centers, and authorities have 40 days to repatriate them before they must release them. The immigrants are either sent back to their country of origin or to the country from which they set sail, if Spain has repatriation accords with that country.

<B>Sudan says African Union must leave</B>

Sudan said yesterday that the African Union has no right to transfer its peacekeeping mission in Darfur to the United Nations and must withdraw its troops from the western region by month?s end.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim said that the AU had indicated that it could not continue its presence in Darfur beyond September 30.

?If they are unable to continue with their assignment in Darfur beyond Sept. 30, then they have to leave before that date. At the same time, they have no right to transfer this assignment to the UN or any other body. This right rests only with the government of the Sudan,?he said. The government on Thursday rejected a UN Security Council resolution for the deployment of a 20, 000-strong UN force in Darfur.

Instead it has launched a major offensive reportedly involving thousands of troops and militias in the northern part of Darfur.

The week-old offensive targets rebels who refused to sign a US-brokered peace deal in May aimed at ending three years of conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

The ill-equipped and underfunded AU force of 7,000 troops has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, where the peace deal signed by the government and one of the three ethnic African rebel groups operating in the region has had little effect.

The African Union has called for the UN to take control of the peacekeeping force, whose formal mandate expires on September 30.

But Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has rejected a UN presence, instead offering to send 10,000 government troops to Darfur.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government would pursue its own plans to pacify Darfur.

?Sudan will proceed with implementation of the Darfur peace agreement according to its own plan to restore security and stability in the region,? he said.

AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said Khartoum had not yet informed the African Union of its decision.

?Up to now, we have not been notified by the government. Therefore we can?t comment on this at present,? he said.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government. The government is accused of unleashing Arab militiamen known as janjaweed who have been blamed for widespread atrocities.

UN officials and aid workers say the crisis has only deepened in recent months, with rape, killings and other attacks in Darfur at a new high. The United Nations has warned of hundreds of thousands of deaths if aid operations collapse. Twelve aid workers have been killed in Darfur this year, most in the last two months.

The Sudanese official news agency SUNA, meanwhile, quoted President al-Bashir as saying UN attempts to deploy peacekeepers was a bid by the international community to take over his country.

?Our decision is decisive rejection (of the UN resolution) then preparation for the confrontation (with the UN forces),? SUNA quoted him as saying Sunday.