By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Eighteen Sudanese officials who withdrew from posts in Darfur in protest at a violent government raid said on Tuesday they had returned to work to campaign for peace in the region.

The officials from former southern rebels the Sudan People's Liberation Movement walked out last month after a raid by government forces on Kalma camp for displaced people in south Darfur left 30 people dead.

SPLM deputy secretary general Yasir Arman told Reuters his party was still protesting against the raid.

He said SPLM ministers and politicians had decided to return to their posts in regional authorities in north, south and west Darfur to search for a permanent end to the five-year conflict.

More than five years of fighting in Darfur has killed 200,000 and driven 2.5 million from their homes, say international experts. Sudan puts the death toll at 10,000.

"We would like our ministers and members to be active in the executive and the legislature in the search for peace and protection of civilians," he added.

The SPLM took up official posts in Sudan's administration, including in Darfur, as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended a two-year north-south civil war.

But relations between the two sides have been strained ever since and their troops have clashed.

Although there is no direct link between the north-south conflict and the one in Darfur, both are rooted in the feeling of marginalisation of people on Sudan's peripheries from traditionally Arab-dominated governments in Khartoum.

Sudan's armed forces said they raided Kalma in August to search for weapons and suspects and had been fired upon by camp residents.

The joint U.N./African Union UNAMID peacekeepers in Darfur criticised the government for using "excessive, disproportionate" force in the raid. Aid sources said women and children were among the dead. (Editing by Matthew Jones)

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