Sudan and South Sudan agreed on Wednesday to reactivate a joint monitoring force along their contested border, a source said, as the southern government fights a rebellion.

The decision came during a meeting between South Sudan's defense minister, Kuol Manyang Juuk, and his Sudanese counterpart Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein.

A Sudanese policeman was killed in a shootout with gangsters in North Darfur capital El Fasher on Tuesday in the latest sign of growing lawlessness in the state, sources said.

A medical source at the hospital in El Fasher told AFP the dead policeman was brought in with two wounded colleagues.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese civilians sheltering in U.N. peacekeeper bases fearing revenge attacks after weeks of conflict are to be moved to new camps, U.N. officials said Monday.

More than three months since fighting broke out, some 77,000 civilians are still inside eight U.N. bases across the troubled nation, in overcrowded conditions that are worsening with the early arrival of torrential rains.

Islamist protesters in Sudan burned the French flag on Friday during their second weekly protest against France's intervention in the Central African Republic.

About 200 demonstrators accused French peacekeepers and the mostly Christian anti-balaka (anti-machete) vigilantes in Central Africa of "crimes against humanity" as they set one flag alight and cut up several others.

Major European and Saudi banks have stopped dealing with Sudan, diplomatic and other sources say, adding to the sanctions-hit country's isolation and further straining its indebted, cash-starved economy.

While Khartoum blames increased "pressure" from a U.S. trade embargo first imposed 17 years ago, a U.S. official said there had been no change in policy from Washington.

A Sudanese court on Thursday sentenced to death in absentia a former governor who is now a rebel leader, along with another insurgent chief, a lawyer said.

Rebels dismissed the verdict as meaningless.

The United States on Thursday urged Sudan to safeguard the right of peaceful assembly, after security forces allegedly shot and killed a university student.

Ali Abaker Mussa Idris died on Tuesday following a University of Khartoum demonstration for peace in Sudan's violence-plagued Darfur region.

East African heads of state met in Addis Ababa Thursday in the latest push for peace in war-torn South Sudan, where almost three months of raging conflict has left thousands dead.

Leaders from the East African bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), were hosted by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to "deliberate on the current situation" in the troubled fledgling nation, a statement read.

Sudanese police fired tear gas Wednesday when mourners called for "revolution" following the funeral of a student allegedly gunned down by security forces at a protest against violence in Darfur.

The incident came after about 1,000 mourners had buried Ali Abaker Mussa Idris in a south Khartoum cemetery.

Worsening violence in Sudan's Darfur spilled over into the Sudanese capital, where a university student was killed Tuesday at a protest calling for peace in the troubled western region.

The unrest was the most serious in Khartoum since last September, when thousands of people took to the streets after the government slashed fuel subsidies.