A United Nations panel called on Sudan this week to order forces not to act against civilians in the western Darfur province.
The panel was created by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council during a special session on Darfur last December. It is presenting a report to the council on Wednesday.
In the report the panel expresses concern over the “seriousness of ongoing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur as well as the lack of accountability of perpetrators of such crimes.”
More than 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, in western Sudan, and more than two million displaced since the conflict there erupted in 2003 between local rebel and armed groups aligned with the government.
It calls on parties involved in the conflict to honor their commitments and implement existing human rights recommendations issued by the U.N.
The panel also calls on all parties to end violence against civilians, with a special focus on women, children, elderly people, internally displaced people and humanitarian workers.
Meanwhile, Khartoum has accepted the deployment of a hybrid U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.
The force will number between 17,000 and 19,600 troops with an extra police component of more than 3,000 officers.
The hybrid operation is the third phase of a three-step process to replace the existing but under-resourced 7,000-strong AU Mission in the Sudan (AMIS), which has been unable to end the fighting in Darfur. Under the plan, the AU will run the daily operation while the U.N. will have overall control.
The Sudanese government has traditionally rejected the idea of U.N. troops in Darfur, describing this as foreign interference and colonialism.
The force will probably not be deployed before next year.