Tanzania's president on Monday called for the beefing up of the protection capacity of peacekeepers in the hybrid U.N./African Union force in Sudan's Darfur region, after seven peacekeepers were killed there in an ambush.

"The time has come to take a fresh look at the way we keep peace in Darfur and at the way peacekeeping forces protect themselves," Jakaya Kikwete said in a speech in Dar es Salaam.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor on Friday warned that a recent deadly ambush on U.N. and African Union troops in Sudan's Darfur could result in war crimes charges.

"The Prosecutor reminds all parties to the conflict that the ICC has jurisdiction in Darfur... and that the intentional directing of attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes," Fatou Bensouda said in a statement, issued in The Hague.

A reporter for the international news service Bloomberg has fled Sudan afraid for his safety after being threatened, assaulted and arbitrarily detained, a watchdog says.

"Michael Gunn told CPJ that he fled the country on July 2 fearing for his life," said a statement from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has left Nigeria after demands for his arrest on war crimes charges, an embassy spokesman said Tuesday, although he denied the departure was due to the controversy.

"He has left. He left in the afternoon (on Monday)," Mohammed Moiz, spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in Nigeria, told Agence France Presse. He denied Bashir had left due to calls for his arrest, saying he had another engagement.

Nigeria's presidency on Monday defended welcoming Sudan President Omar al-Bashir to the country for an African Union health summit despite war crimes charges against him, saying it cannot interfere in AU affairs.

Bashir arrived in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Sunday for the summit on HIV/AIDS, turberculosis and malaria despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir landed in Nigeria's capital on Sunday to attend a continental health summit as rights groups slammed the "shameful" decision to host a leader charged with war crimes.

Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, landed in Abuja at 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) ahead of an African Union Summit on infectious diseases.

At least 200 people have been wounded in a week of bitter fighting in South Sudan's Jonglei state, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the country said Sunday.

"Some 200 casualties have arrived in Manyabol", a remote village in the troubled eastern state of Jonglei, where militia gunmen from rival ethnic groups have been battling, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan Tony Lanzer said in a statement.

A rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region accused government-linked militia on Sunday of carrying out an ambush which killed seven peacekeepers and wounded 17.

"We don't have any doubt that the act was done by government militia, because militia are deployed in Khor Abeche area," said Abdullah Moursal, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army's Minni Minnawi faction.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon is "outraged" at the killing of seven Tanzanian peacekeepers in an ambush in Darfur and called on the Sudanese government to take action, his spokesman said Saturday.

The seven were killed by unidentified attackers near Nyala in South Darfur. It was the latest of a series of attacks on U.N. troops in the western region this year. No perpetrators have yet been caught.

Seven peacekeepers were killed on Saturday during an ambush in Sudan's Darfur region, the African Union-U.N. Mission said, marking the worst-ever losses in the five-year history of the operation.

The attack adds to worsening violence in Sudan's far-west region and happened near the peacekeepers' base at Manawashi, north of the South Darfur state capital Nyala.