UN asks Nepal to stop gross HR abuses

"It is a tragedy for the people of Nepal that full-scale armed conflict may now resume," Arbour said in a statement released in New York and Geneva on Thursday.

"But there need not and must not be the same gross violations of international humanitarian law and human rights standards that have been perpetrated during previous phases of the conflict," she said.

Arbour referred to a history of executions, abductions, attacks on buses, indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and widespread torture. Children have been killed, recruited, used as informers, and arbitrarily detained and beaten.

She said that Nepal had ratified the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners as well as other human rights treaties while the Nepalese Communist Party had made general commitments to respect international humanitarian law.

Both sides should "declare publicly their acceptance of all that these principles, and to explain to their cadres their responsibility to respect them in practice," Arbour said.

On Thursday, three police officers were killed by the rebels and at least 11 people were wounded in the worst day of violence since the cease-fire ended this week, police and witnesses said.

The rebels -- who have been fighting since 1996 to topple the Hindu monarchy and set up a single-party Communist state -- on Monday ended their four-month unilateral cease-fire, accusing government forces of provoking the move.

Meanwhile, a Nepal Maoist rebel died in a battle with soldiers Friday, the army said, a day after three policemen were killed in the deadliest clash with the guerrillas since a ceasefire ended earlier this week.

The latest bloodshed came as human rights groups and analysts expressed fears about an upsurge in violence in the Himalayan kingdom and one leading Nepal human rights group called for a new ceasefire.

Friday's clash took place in Rauthat district, 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Kathmandu, an army official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"There were no army casualties," he added.