Sudan has ended fuel subsidies as part of an IMF-backed reform programme, state media reported Wednesday, doubling pump prices at the risk of stoking popular discontent.

Weekend clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in South Darfur have killed at least 36 people and left dozens wounded, according to state media and witnesses.

Twelve civilians have been killed in a contested oil-rich border region claimed by Sudan and South Sudan in what local government officials said Monday was a massacre by nomadic herdsmen.

The attack took place early Sunday at a village some 64 kilometres (40 miles) east of the main town in Abyei, a disputed region under UN protection since South Sudan gained independence in 2011.

France will lend Sudan $1.5 billion to help the African nation pay off its massive debt to the International Monetary Fund as it emerges from decades of authoritarian rule, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Monday.

Sudan's prime minister has invited his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts to a closed meeting to discuss the long-running dispute over Addis Ababa's mega-dam on the Blue Nile, his office said. 

Tribal clashes in Sudan's restive Darfur region have killed at least 18 people and wounded 54, a local doctors' committee said Monday.

The U.N. Security Council urged Somalia's government on Friday to organize elections "without delay" in a resolution that stressed the pressing threat to the country's security from al-Shabab and armed opposition groups.

The resolution, which was adopted unanimously, authorized the African Union to maintain its nearly 20,000-strong force in Somalia until the end of the year with a mandate to reduce the threat from the extremist groups to enable "a stable, federal, sovereign and united Somalia."

Ten people, including the two pilots, died when a plane crashed Tuesday at an airstrip in South Sudan's Jonglei state, the region's governor said.

"It was with great shock and horror to receive the news of the plane crash (HK-4274) of South Sudan Supreme Airline that happened today the 2nd day of March 2021 at around 5.05 PM at Pieri Airstrip," Governor Denay Jock Chagor said in a statement sent to AFP Wednesday.

On the eve of its first anniversary, South Sudan's unity government is in trouble, with the country's fragile peace process in doubt and old rivalries again threatening a return to war.

Sudan Wednesday recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia, the foreign ministry said, as tensions between the two countries run high over a border region and Addis Ababa's controversial Blue Nile dam.