Authorities at the Rafik Hariri International Airport thwarted an attempt to smuggle narcotics into the country en route from Brazil, through Addis Ababa and Cairo, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

The scheme was thwarted Thursday when a Swedish national tried to smuggle the ample amounts of narcotics, that almost weigh 18kg, in 12 plastic containers, NNA added.

An Ethiopian diplomat who opened fire to quell a protest outside his country's embassy in Washington has left the United States to avoid prosecution, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The U.N. Thursday urged Sudan and rebels, meeting for their first peace talks in almost a year, to reach an immediate ceasefire so aid can reach more than one million civilians.

Negotiations between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) were to begin Thursday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, under African Union mediation.

South Sudan's government said Tuesday that it was poised to recapture a key town from rebel forces, as peace talks being held in neighboring Ethiopia appeared to be making slow progress.

The claim came amid renewed warnings of a fast deteriorating humanitarian situation, with the aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warning that people displaced by the conflict were at risk of epidemics.

Formal peace talks between South Sudan's government and rebels are set to open Monday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, delegates and diplomats said.

The talks, brokered by the East African regional bloc IGAD and aimed at ending three weeks of unrest in South Sudan, are set to start at 3:00pm (1200 GMT), Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda said.

More residents of South Sudan's capital were packing up belongings and fleeing for the border with Uganda on Sunday after several hours of fierce clashes during the night, Agence France Presse reported.

Juba was rocked by heavy gunfire late on Saturday, with exchanges of automatic and heavy weapons fire heard coming from a district in the south of the city before calm returned in the early hours of the morning.

Peace talks between South Sudan's warring factions must not be a "gimmick" to gain the upper hand on the ground, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday.

"Both parties need to put the interest of South Sudan above their own," Kerry told reporters in Jerusalem.

Ethiopia has repatriated over 100,000 citizens from Saudi Arabia, Addis Ababa's foreign ministry said Thursday, following a violent crackdown against illegal immigrants in the oil-rich kingdom.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom said that up to 50,000 more citizens are still expected to come home.

Ethiopia and Egypt have agreed to hold further talks on the impact of an Ethiopian dam to quell tensions between the two countries, the foreign ministers of both nations said Tuesday.

"We agreed that we will start immediately on consultations at both the technical level... and the political level," Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr told reporters, after meetings in Addis Ababa with his Ethiopian counterpart Tedros Adhanom.

African leaders and international officials pledged $455.5 million at a donor conference Tuesday for military operations against Islamist militants in Mali and humanitarian aid.

Malian President Dioncounda Traore thanked the "entire international community" as nations offered cash or support at the top-level meeting at the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia's capital.