Top Sudanese officials on Monday promised journalists access to the war-ravaged states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile but said some media restrictions are necessary for the country's security.

Access for reporters, diplomats and aid workers has been tightly controlled since a rebellion by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) began in South Kordofan in June last year, followed by Blue Nile in September.

Unusually intense rainy-season flooding has killed 32 people and destroyed thousands of homes around Sudan, the interior ministry said on Sunday.

The deaths were recorded since the start of the rainy season in mid-June, the ministry said in a report.

At least 1,000 families have been affected by flooding in impoverished eastern Sudan, where some communities have been cut off by rising waters, the United Nations said on Saturday.

Almost 500 families lost their homes in one part of Kassala state, while more than 500 others are believed to have escaped the flooding and sought safety at a camp known as Kilo 26, in the state's Khashm El Girba district, said Felix Ross, of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The United Nations said Friday that 25,000 people have been displaced in Sudan's Darfur region after unrest that began 10 days ago with the killing of a government official.

"Reports received by the U.N. indicate that the entire population of the Kassab IDP camp -- 25,000 people -- fled because of the fighting," the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said in its latest weekly bulletin.

A Sudanese driver for the World Food Program has been shot dead in war-torn South Kordofan state, the U.N. agency said on Sunday.

"Our driver was killed yesterday in an armed attack in an area some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kadugli," WFP spokeswoman Amor Almagro told AFP.

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed an oil sharing deal Saturday between Sudan and South Sudan, which has helped resolve a dispute that nearly brought the rivals to war earlier this year.

Landlocked South Sudan said it had agreed to pay a pipeline transit fee of $9.48 per oil barrel to transport its crude through Sudan, a significant drop from Khartoum's initial demands of up to $36 a barrel in fees.

Sudan and South Sudan have reached an agreement on how to share the oil riches controlled by Khartoum before the country's partition, African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki said Saturday.

"The parties have agreed on all of the financial arrangements regarding oil, so that's done," Mbeki told reporters, without offering details. Mbeki said the production and export of oil would resume, but did not confirm when.

The two Sudans must strike an urgent compromise deal to end bitter disputes, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday, warning the newly separated nations they "remain inextricably linked.”

Sudan and South Sudan "will need to compromise to close the remaining gaps between them," Clinton said, after meeting South Sudan's President Salva Kiir.

The U.N. World Food Program on Thursday said it was planning air drops into Upper Nile State in South Sudan to deliver up to 5,000 metric tons of food this month to tens of thousands of refugees.

"WFP is pulling out all the stops to keep providing desperately needed food to refugees in Upper Nile State", who are fleeing fighting in Sudan's Blue Nile State, WFP's South Sudan country director Chris Nikoi said in a statement.

The United States is leading international warnings to Sudan and South Sudan to step up efforts to reach a peace accord this week or face possible U.N. sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council has given the rival neighbors, who this year came close to all-out war, until Thursday to make their peace.