Sudan has rejected a call by UN experts for the deployment of an "independent and impartial force" to protect millions of civilians driven from their homes by more than a year of war.

The UN Human Rights Council created a fact-finding mission on the conflict in Sudan last year, culminating in a statement from independent UN experts released on Friday.

They said the mission uncovered "harrowing" violations by both sides, "which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity".

They called for "an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians" to be deployed "without delay".

UN should 'support the national process', foreign ministry says

The Sudanese foreign ministry, which is loyal to the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, responded in a statement on Saturday.

"The Sudanese government rejects in their entirety the recommendations of the UN mission," the statement read.

It called the UN Human Rights Council "a political and illegal body" and the panel's recommendations "a flagrant violation of their mandate".

It also rejected the experts' call for an arms embargo.

The Sudanese foreign ministry statement accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Mr Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, of "systematically targeting civilians and civilian institutions".

"The protection of civilians remains an absolute priority for the Sudanese government," it said.

The statement added that the UN Human Rights Council's role should be "to support the national process, rather than seek to impose a different exterior mechanism".

'Wake up and help', WHO chief urges

The conflict, which pits Sudan's army against paramilitary forces, has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises since sparking in April last year.

The UN experts said eight million civilians have been displaced and another two million people have fled to neighbouring countries.

More than 25 million people — upwards of half the country's population — face acute food shortages.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made a visit to Sudan on Sunday. He spoke from Port Sudan, where government offices and the United Nations have relocated to due to the intense fighting in the capital Khartoum.

"The scale of the emergency is shocking, as is the insufficient action being taken to curtail the conflict and respond to the suffering it is causing," he said.

He called on the "world to wake up and help Sudan out of the nightmare it is living through".

AFP