Sudanese rebels seized control of an area in war-ravaged eastern Darfur after deadly clashes with government militias, their spokesman said on Saturday, adding that the army continued to bombard the area.

"Justice and Equality Movement forces seized the Um Ajajah region in eastern Darfur on Friday, destroying a mobile contingent of government militias and capturing 20 small vehicles and large trucks loaded with military equipment," JEM spokesman Gibril Adam Bilal said.

Peace talks between Khartoum and Juba to set up a demilitarized buffer zone have ended with Sudan accusing South Sudan of seeking to create "10 disputed areas," state media reported on Friday.

Sudan has urged the African Union to move its July summit from Malawi to its Addis Ababa headquarters after the host nation's refusal to welcome President Omar al-Bashir, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

Sudan informed the pan-African bloc of its request on Wednesday after Malawi announced that Bashir "would not be welcome at this summit, upon a claimed adherence of Malawi to its obligations to the so-called 'International Criminal Court'," the ministry said in a statement.

An "exceptional" airlift of almost 12,000 South Sudanese ended with a final flight from Khartoum on Wednesday but thousands more continue to live in makeshift conditions while they, too, await transport to the South, officials said.

One hundred Southerners took the last chartered plane from Khartoum to South Sudan's capital Juba at 1000 GMT, said Jill Helke, chief of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Sudan.

An increasing number of ethnic South Sudanese are living in makeshift conditions in the Sudanese capital, hoping for transport to South Sudan, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Estimates from community leaders say that up to 38,000 South Sudanese are now staying in so-called "departure points" around the capital Khartoum, said Philippa Candler, assistant representative for protection with the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sudan.

Peace talks to end weeks of fighting between Sudan and South Sudan were deadlocked Tuesday after failing to agree on where to set up a demilitarized zone along their contested border.

Sudan's state security agency on Monday blocked distribution of the country's largest-circulation newspaper, which has criticized talks between Sudan and South Sudan, the newspaper's boss said.

Al Intibaha, a hardline anti-South daily which supported South Sudan's separation last July, has been a regular critic of negotiations between the two countries.

The defense ministers of Sudan and South Sudan are set to meet in the Ethiopian capital on Monday to discuss border security, a South Sudanese official said.

"The extraordinary meeting... will discuss the establishment of the various mechanism, including the joint border verification and monitoring mechanism and the establishment of the safe border demilitarized zone," Juba's chief negotiator Pagan Amum told Agence France Presse on Saturday.

Sudan has expelled four foreign aid groups working in the country's east, a source at the government's Humanitarian Affairs Commission told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"HAC decided to expel four international NGOs working in eastern Sudan because they failed in their planned projects," said the source, asking not to be named.

A Sudanese court on Thursday threw out the case against a prominent journalist who said it was inappropriate for President Omar al-Bashir to call South Sudan's government an "insect".

Journalists and press freedom advocates said the case against Faisal Mohammed Salih was symptomatic of a worsening government attack on critical voices over the past year, as tensions with South Sudan escalated following the South's independence in July.