Chinese-made weapons supplied by the United Arab Emirates have been identified with Sudan's paramilitaries, Amnesty International said Thursday, as drone attacks prompted civilians to flee the army-held aid hub of Port Sudan.

Sudan's army-aligned government on Tuesday severed diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, accusing the Gulf state of supplying weapons used by the rival paramilitaries to strike its de facto capital.

Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government during the country's two-year war.

Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government in the country's two-year war.

The world's only research centre on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan's two-year war, its director and another expert say.

On a mountain near Sudan's border, journalists climb rugged slopes, phones held high, hoping to catch a faint signal from neighbouring Chad to send stories amid the war's two-year communications blackout.

For a week, eight-year-old Mohamed has suffered the pain of shrapnel stuck in his arm. But he is one of the lucky ones in Sudan's western city El-Fasher, which is under paramilitary attack.

It had been nearly two years since AFP journalist Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali set foot in his home in war-torn Khartoum, after the sound of children playing in the street gave way to the fearsome fire of machine guns.

Clashes between Sudanese paramilitaries and the army have killed at least 57 civilians in the besieged Darfur city of El-Fasher, medical and activist sources said Thursday, with civilians fearing a looming bloodbath as fighters close in.

The UK on Wednesday denounced a move by Sudan's rebel paramilitary force to install a rival government in the war-torn country, and called for a civilian-led peace settlement.