A $200m loan from China will form the bulk of a compensation payment the government of Sudan has pledged to make to the beleaguered Darfur region, according to former US president Jimmy Carter, who is visiting the country.

Mr Carter said on Wednesday that Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, made the pledge during talks with him and other members of a visiting group of elder statesmen.

“He promised us there would be $300m (€212m, £147m) in all coming to the Darfur region in compensation: $100m coming from the government and $200m to be a loan from the Chinese,” Mr Carter was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Sudan’s foreign ministry was not able to confirm the pledge or provide any further details but an official announcement was expected on Wednesday night. China’s embassy in Khartoum was closed for a Chinese national holiday.

If the loan from China is provided specifically for compensation, it would mark a significant departure for a country whose financial support to African countries is normally provided for trade and infrastructure projects.

China, which imports large volumes of oil from Sudan, has previously received sharp criticism for obstructing attempts by the United Nations Security Council to try to quell the violence in Darfur. But following calls by some US activists for a boycott of next year’s Beijing Olympics over Darfur, China was credited with persuading the Khartoum government to accept a beefed-up UN/African Union peacekeeping force in the region.

The issue of compensation is likely to form a central part of peace talks between the government and several of Darfur’s fractious rebel groups, scheduled to start on October 27 in Libya.

As part of an unsuccessful peace agreement signed last year the government agreed to provide $30m of compensation. The funds have not yet been disbursed due to wrangling over who it will be distributed to: there are competing claims from different ethnic groups and areas of Darfur, as well as from the representatives of specific villages that have been destroyed and from individuals.

Mr Carter is visiting Sudan with a group that includes Sir Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur, and Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop.

The “elders” began their tour soon after an unprecedented attack on an African Union peacekeeping base by a renegade group of rebels, which killed at least 10 personnel over the weekend. The attack underlined how violence in Darfur has evolved beyond a simple conflict between government-backed forces and homogenous rebels.

General Martin Luther Agwai, the commander of AU forces in Darfur, told Mr Tutu’s delegation: “We are outgunned, we are outnumbered and we can be overrun very quickly.”