LUANDA (Reuters) - The Angolan government said on Monday it had retaken control of northern parts of the country from UNITA rebels, but the guerrillas countered by detailing their recent military operations in the area. Aid workers said conditions in the region remained dangerous with regular rebel-government skirmishes and a western diplomat said there was little evidence that the situation had changed. State Radio Nacional said army successes around the province of Uige, northeast of the capital Luanda, had allowed many people forced from their homes by the resumption of civil war last December to return to their villages. "The political military situation…is controlled in spite of the fact our territory is subject to certain actions in a few parts," Defence Vice Minister Armando Cruz Neto told the radio. "In Uige, for example, the armed forces have broadened their cordon of defence… The local population is returning to areas after the expulsion of the band of terrorists of Jonas Savimbi." But UNITA, led by veteran guerrilla fighter Savimbi, said on its web site it had carried out several attacks on government troops in the area in the past three weeks. The movement, which has been fighting the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos since the early 1970s, said it recently killed 40 soldiers in and around the city of Uige, the capital of the province of the same name. A Western diplomat in Luanda said there was little evidence to suggest the military situation around Uige had changed in recent days. Aid agencies working in the city, where an estimated 50,000 refugees have arrived since December, say there are no signs of displaced people leaving to return to their villages. "There are a lot of internally displaced in Uige from Sanza Pombo, 150 km (93 miles) to the east. They are not going back. In fact, there are new displaced people arriving every week," an aid worker in the city told Reuters. He described the situation as "extremely difficult" with no fuel in the city and continual rebel movement only 20 km (12 miles) from the centre of town. Fighting between the rebels and the government resumed seven months ago after dos Santos grew frustrated with UNITA‘s lack of compliance with a 1994 peace accord. The accord, called the Lusaka Protocol, aimed to put an end to more than a quarter century of fighting by calling for the demobilisation and disarmament of rebel units and the formation of a government of national unity. But distrust of the government prompted Savimbi to slow the process of disarming and even re-arm in places, eventually sparking an army offensive and renewed civil war.