A statement after talks between rebels and Sudanese government officials in Chad's capital N'Djamena said the parties had agreed to prepare for "the rapid and vigorous resumption" of peace talks.

It said the talks would be attended by high-level representatives in order to swiftly reach an accord.

It also said the parties had agreed to a "total and definitive ceasefire" and asked that the African Union (AU) reinforce its peacekeeping mission in Darfur "so that the Darfur crisis is resolved in an African framework."

The declaration came after Annan urged the U.N. Security Council to take immediate steps to stop the war in western Sudan, which has killed at least 70,000 people since March and displaced 2 million.

Full-blown peace talks between the warring parties in Nigeria's capital Abuja had been stalled since December.

The statement in N'Djamena gave no firm date for new talks but Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, current chair of the 53-member African Union, said on Wednesday he hoped they would start again in Abuja at the end of February.

The N'Djamena agreement was reached between Sudanese government officials and Darfur's two main rebel groups the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.

The parties to the talks also agreed a verification team would be sent to Darfur to map out the positions of the belligerents with a view to separating these forces a move previously rejected by the rebel groups.

Both sides agreed to cooperate fully with the team.

"SAVE HUMANITY FROM HELL"

In New York on Wednesday, Annan urged the Security Council to take urgent action to end the Darfur war, saying it should consider a full range of options including sanctions and stronger peacekeeping efforts.

Annan also backed a call by the U.S. administration for a travel and assets freeze on those violating the ceasefire.

"While the United Nations may not be able to take humanity to heaven, it must act to save humanity from hell," Annan said at the meeting called to review a report by a U.N.-appointed commission on Darfur.

The report accused the Sudanese government and militias of "heinous crimes." It said rebels were responsible for serious crimes but its chief criticism was directed at the government's inability to stop marauding Arab militiamen.

"The report demonstrates beyond all doubt that the last two years have been little short of hell on earth for our fellow human beings in Darfur," Annan said.

Aid workers said on Thursday hundreds of refugees were still flooding into the Kalma camp in Darfur, fleeing attacks by soldiers and militias.

"In November, December and January, there was a flood of people coming into the camps from a combination of attacks by military and militias," said Philippe Schneider, an aid worker with a U.N. agency.

The camp, built for 60,000 people, is now home to more than 150,000.

REFUGEES FLOODING CAMP

After years of tribal conflict over scarce resources, Darfur's rebels took up arms in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglect and giving preferential treatment to Arab tribes.

The government is accused of mobilizing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages. The government says it recruited militias to fight the rebellion but not the Janjaweed, whom it has called outlaws.

The parties to the N'Djamena talks called on the Sudanese to redraft a plan for the disarmament of the militias and to submit a more practical proposal for the disarmament of the Janjaweed.

The AU has 1,400 troops in Darfur and expects the force to grow to more than 3,000.

Although the U.S. administration in Washington has been in the forefront of recommending tough action on Sudan, it rejects using the International Criminal Court to try those suspected of war crimes in Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council was split on Thursday over where to try the cases, with Europe, China and the United States pushing different options and diplomats seeing no easy solution.

For the first time, 12 of the 15 Security Council members decided that perpetrators of atrocities should go before the new ICC in The Hague.

Washington has lobbied for a new court for Sudan be convened in Arusha, Tanzania, using facilities of the 1994 Rwanda genocide tribunal.

The United States proposed a draft resolution on Monday that would impose an arms embargo, an asset freeze on violators of a cease-fire in Darfur and restrictions on offensive government military flights. But the draft omitted a venue for the trials.

"We want immediate sanctions and that is what we are pushing for," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. "We certainly want to hold them accountable and the exact mechanism we will talk about later."

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