Club-wielding police broke up a protest Friday by supporters of jailed Sudanese opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, beating up demonstrators, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Mahdi, an ex-premier who heads the opposition Umma Party, was arrested on May 17 for alleged treason after he reportedly accused a counter-insurgency unit, the Rapid Support Forces, of rape and other abuses of civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

A new round of talks on ending South Sudan's nearly six-month-old civil war have been delayed, mediators said Wednesday.

No explanation was given for the latest delay in the talks, which are aimed at building on a ceasefire agreement signed last month and paving the way for more face-to-face talks between President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, a former vice president.

Conflicting comments by Sudanese officials over whether a Christian woman sentenced to hang for apostasy will be freed reflect confusion within the Islamist government, hit by international outrage over the verdict, analysts say.

Khartoum is torn between hardline Islamists, who demand the execution of the 27-year-old mother of two, who just gave birth to a daughter in prison, and foreign pressure to free her, Sudanese analyst Khaled al-Tijani al-Nur says.

At least 41 people have been killed in clashes between rival Sudanese clans over the ownership of land being explored for oil in West Kordofan state, a tribal source said.

Another 13 people were seriously wounded in the fighting that raged through to Sunday between the Zurug and Awlad Amran clans of the powerful Misseriya tribe, the source told Agence France Presse.

Sudan denied on Sunday a Christian Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy would be freed soon, saying quotes attributed to a foreign ministry official had been taken out of context.

Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag was sentenced to death on May 15 under the Islamic sharia law that has been in place since 1983 and outlaws conversions under pain of death.

The husband of a Christian Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy said Friday he had visited her in jail, where she just gave birth, and that she and their daughter are well.

There was an international outcry after Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag was condemned on May 15 under Islamic sharia law, which has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death.

The EU expressed "great concern" Wednesday over tighter restrictions in Sudan since ex-premier Sadiq al-Mahdi was detained in mid-May after reportedly accusing a counter-insurgency unit of abuses against civilians in Darfur.

President Omar al-Bashir appealed in January for a national political dialogue, and hinted at greater freedoms.

A Christian Sudanese woman, sentenced to hang for apostasy in a case that has sparked international outcry, has given birth in jail, her husband said Tuesday.

"Until now I did not see them. They didn't allow me to go in and see," Daniel Wani told Agence France Presse.

Sudanese prosecutors on Monday banned journalists from reporting on the case of former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, detained after reportedly accusing a counter-insurgency unit of abuses against civilians in Darfur.

The order comes after a watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, warned of authorities' "increasingly repressive attitude to the media", despite government talk of greater freedoms in the country.

Sudanese rebels say they have begun a major operation against an area in South Kordofan which a controversial counter-insurgency unit showed off to journalists after "liberating" it last week.

The local commander of the government troops, known as Rapid Support-2, was reported killed.