Floods and heavy monsoon rains have now killed 178 people and affected 1.5 million across Pakistan in the last three weeks, disaster management officials said Sunday in updated figures.

"At least 178 people have died and 1,503,492 others affected by recent monsoon rains and floods across Pakistan," a senior National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) official told Agence France Presse.

Tribal fighting this month between rival Arab groups in Sudan's East Darfur killed 190 people, the United Nations said on Friday.

According to reports received by the U.N., "100 Reizegat tribesmen were killed and another 140 were injured, while on the Maaliya side 70 were reportedly killed and 113 were injured" at one location, the U.N.'s weekly Humanitarian Bulletin said.

More than 300,000 people across Sudan have been affected by floods which killed almost 50 people this month, the U.N.'s World Health Organization said in a statement received Thursday.

The region around the capital Khartoum has been particularly hard-hit, where the inundation was the worst in 25 years, the U.N. says.

Twenty-four people have been freed in Sudan's Darfur region, four days after being abducted by a rival Arab tribe following deadly clashes, official media said on Wednesday.

The Maaliya tribe members kidnapped by the Rezeigat have been released "in response to efforts of mediation and the government," the state SUNA news agency said.

A top army commander in the troubled new nation of South Sudan has been arrested over a string of alleged human rights violations, officials said Tuesday.

General James Otong Riek was a commander in the eastern state of Jonglei, the scene of heavy fighting last month between rival ethnic groups. The army said he had been implicated in "several reports and complaints of killings".

Egypt is on the "right path", foreign minister Nabil Fahmy said Monday in Sudan on his first trip abroad, after hundreds died in clashes between Egyptian Islamists and security forces.

"Yes there is a crisis but we are on the right path and I believe in the future," he said after talks with his Sudanese counterpart Ali Karti.

More flooding is expected in Sudan, the country's chief weather forecaster warned on Thursday, after severe rains have killed 53 people and affected about 200,000.

"According to our information there is heavy rain in Ethiopia, and we expect flooding in the coming days," Abdallah Khiar told reporters.

Egyptian military planes landed in the Sudanese capital on Wednesday, an Agence France Presse photographer said, as part of a regional aid effort for flood victims in the Khartoum area.

The five cargo aircraft brought blankets, emergency sheeting material and tents, the photographer said.

A helicopter and its crew contracted by peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur have been "detained" be rebels in the troubled region for 10 days, the mission said on Tuesday.

The Mi-8 chopper was contracted by a Russian company and did not carry U.N. markings, Christopher Cycmanick, acting spokesman for the African Union-U.N. Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), told Agence France Presse.

The number of people affected by this month's flooding in Sudan has climbed to around 150,000 and is expected to rise further, the United Nations said on Monday.

More than half the victims, 84,000, are in the area around the capital Khartoum, said the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).