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• 'We cannot turn our back'
• A three-month truce proposed
• People starving in areas of fighting
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AGANGRIAL, Sudan (CNN) -- As young and old face starvation together in southern Sudan, Britain is urging rebels and the government to agree to a truce that would allow the delivery of emergency food aid.

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CNN's Catherine Bond reports from southern Sudan
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Victims of famine are leaving their homes to come to southern Sudanese villages like Agangrial in search of food. But when they arrive they find only water and leaves.

In the past eight weeks, the secluded area has received only two deliveries of U.N. food and a distribution of free grain from the Roman Catholic diocese. That has not been enough to stop malnutrition and starvation.

"We are now suffering," said an old man. "Many people are dying."

In a meeting Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya, a British Foreign Office Minister Derek Fatchett proposed a truce to allow food aid to reach Sudan's 2.6 million hungry people.

Fatchett, meeting with rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Army, proposed a limited cease-fire that would create "corridors of tranquillity" in parts of southern Sudan. He will fly to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum for meetings with government officials on Wednesday.

"We are all too aware that millions of Sudanese are threatened with starvation," Fatchett said. "We cannot turn our back on their plight. For them, the political settlement may be too long in coming."

The proposal for a truce came as the rebels claimed another victory against government forces. An SPLA official said the rebels thwarted a government effort to retake Ulu, a town about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Rosieres Dam on the Blue Nile River near the Ethiopian border in southern Sudan

Rebels said 273 government troops were killed while only 15 rebels died. The rebels said they captured heavy equipment that included tanks and motor launchers.

A Sudanese government official reported intensive fighting for the past seven days along the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, but spoke of pro-government forces defeating the rebels.

No independent confirmation of a rebel victory was immediately available.

Fatchett said his proposal is for an agreement that would allow a three-month truce along safe aid corridors. Britain has proposed the creation of three of the corridors along river, road and rail networks.

SPLA's representative in Nairobi said the talks with Fatchett were "fruitful" but declined to comment on details or on whether the SPLA will accept a truce.

"It is of great interest to us that our people get saved," the rebel spokesman said.

The monitoring of any truce would be done with a "light touch" but could involve international monitors, Fatchett said.

With military instead of humanitarian objectives clearly paramount in the eyes of the warring parties, and breakaway factions clouding the picture, some observers are doubtful that such a truce would hold.

"It's a good idea but it will be left to the fighting forces to honor it," said Jacob Akol of the aid agency World Vision.

But Fatchett said the judgment of the international community would encourage each side to keep such a truce.

"If the two parties do sign up and then break their word, that would be very damaging for either party," he said.

The U.N.'s World Food Program says the 2.6 million hungry people in Sudan are mainly in areas of fighting.

More than 700,000 are in the province of Bahr el Ghazal, where breakaway warlord Kerubino Kwanyin Bol waged a three-year campaign of terror before rejoining the SPLA earlier this year.

Thousands of Sudanese in rebel-held areas of Bahr el Ghazal poured into government towns in search of food, the U.N. food program said on Tuesday.

In Agangrial, schoolboys said some people have died of hunger and been laid to rest without a proper burial under brushwood in the forest.

The boys say they get some food at school, but that the difference between life or death for many people in their area is whether they can stomach leaves and grasses that grow in the wild.

The local Dinka people of Agangrial say the reason for the famine in their area is poor crops after last year's drought.

In the marketplace and in homesteads along paths outside the village, most families prepare evening meals consisting only of boiled leaves, which they describe as bitter and unappetizing.

Rain has come to the area, but the next harvest remains at least six weeks away. Many will die of hunger before then unless more food aid gets to them.

Nairobi Bureau Chief Catherine Bond, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.