By Crispin Thorold
BBC News, United Nations
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he has documented thousands of alleged direct killings of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, who is investigating crimes against humanity in the western region, says the killings include large-scale massacres.
Mr Ocampo, in a report to the UN, also criticised Sudan's own investigations.
The court was set up in 2002 to prosecute individuals for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Prosecutions
The Darfur Crimes Database must make dreadful reading.
Collated by investigators from the court, it lists thousands of alleged murders, including many massacres.
According to Mr Ocampo, the court's chief prosecutor, in many incidents eyewitnesses recounted the attackers saying things like, "we will drive you out of this land".
Mr Ocampo's report to the UN Security Council lists other crimes, including thousands of deaths as a result of displacement and hundreds of alleged cases of rape.
The Sudanese government has said its judiciary will investigate the incidents but Mr Ocampo says that at this stage it does not appear that Sudan is investigating and prosecuting the cases that are of interest to the court.
This is not a final determination, but it is still significant as an International Criminal Court prosecution can only occur if the national judiciary is deemed to have failed to provide justice.
According to Mr Ocampo, the Sudanese government has said that it will co-operate with the inquiry - and has agreed to interviews with government officials, to begin in August this year.
(BBC)
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