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Huma n rights groups Wednesday raised the alarm over the humanitarian situation in western Sudan, accusing the Khartoum government of carrying out a "massive terror campaign" in fighting that has claimed up to 10,000 lives.

Human Rights Watch urged "intense, sustained international pressure" on the Sudanese government, whose militia force agreed a 45-day humanitarian ceasefire with rebel forces at the weekend.

"Without the international spotlight, the Sudanese government is unlikely to disarm and disband its Arab militia, re-establish security in the rural areas, or guarantee the safety of displaced persons who wish to return home for planting season -- crucial benchmarks for any improvement in the situation," Jemera Rone, the group's Sudan expert, said in a statement.

The ceasefire was a "welcome first step but requires immediate and rigorous international monitoring to avert a humanitarian disaster and continued civilian displacement," the New York-based rights organization said.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) echoed the concerns, saying: "The whole western part of Sudan is now suffering from a dramatic humanitarian crisis."

About 670,000 people have been displaced by the year-long conflict and another 100,000 have fled across the border into eastern Chad. But most of those still inside Sudan cannot be reached by foreign aid.

The ceasefire accord called for a renewable 45-day truce, free access for humanitarian aid, the release of prisoners and the disarmament by Khartoum of armed militias fighting in Darfur.

Human Rights Watch said Sudans army forces and militias have burned villages and killed, raped and abducted hundreds of civilians and forced hundreds of thousands more from their homes, "a pattern of abuses amounting to crimes against humanity."

The Paris-based FIDH said in a statement: "Since the government launched a large terror campaign in the region, civilians are subjected to constant, violent and indiscrimimate attacks, which are likely to have made up to 10,000 victims," FIDH said.

"Arbitrary arrests, the widespread use of torture, abductions and extra-judicial executions of those suspected of supporting the rebels, lootings, as well as the systematic raping of women and girls are regularly reported," it charged.

"The ongoing conflict... has been dramatically escalating for the past months," FIDH said, adding: "The medical situation is alarmingly deteriorating in the (displaced people's) camps," citing a measles outbreak.

A Chadian mediator in the conflict told AFP that the ceasefire had been holding since Sunday, while Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail rejected US "allegations" that Khartoum had broken the ceasefire.

New peace talks are set for April 20 in the Chadian capital.

Meanshile Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir pledged late Tuesday to sign a framework peace deal with another rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), by Friday, after a US mediator briefly pulled out in frustration at the slow pace of talks in Kenya.

Beshir said he expected the long-awaited deal to be signed "today, tomorrow or the next two days," state radio, and both pro-government and independent Khartoum dailies reported.

The reports said the breakthrough came after the SPLA abandoned demands for non-Muslim residents of the capital to be subject to secular rather than Islamic sharia law during a promised six-year period of southern autonomy leading up to a referendum on independence - Sapa-AFP.

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