Sudan's oil ministry said Sunday that the first crude from South Sudan reached its territory, bringing both impoverished nations closer to billions of dollars in revenue after a dispute over fees. "The first batch of oil already arrived on Sudanese land yesterday," Sudan's undersecretary at the petroleum ministry, Awad Abdul Fatah, told AFP. "It's a small testing quantity." Eight days ago South Sudan held a ceremony to restart oil production at the Thar Jath field in Unity state after a shutdown of more than a year.

Demonstrations have taken place across Sudan's troubled Darfur region against an international donors' conference which begins tomorrow in the Gulf state of Qatar, a civil society activist said.Some of the 1.4 million people displaced by Darfur's decade-long conflict protested yesterday at their camps near North Darfur's state capital El Fasher, and in Kalma camp, South Darfur, said the activist, who asked not to be identified.‘They demonstrated because there is no security on the ground,’ the activist added, without saying how many people took part in the protests.Pro

South Sudan restarted oil production Saturday, ending a bitter 15-month row with former civil war foe Sudan and marking a major breakthrough in relations after bloody border clashes last year. "The oil is now flowing," South Sudan oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau shouted as he flicked a switch to restart production at a ceremony in the Thar Jath field in Unity state. Sudan and South Sudan came close to a return to all-out conflict last year in bitter fighting along their un-demarcated border in April and March, a conflict prompted partly by their disputes over oil.

South Sudanese oil will be shipped again from Sudan by the end of May, official media said, after a shutdown of more than a year which cost both impoverished nations billions of dollars. "Sudan and South Sudan agreed to start oil pumping in mid-April and the exportation by the end of May," the official SUNA news agency said in a brief dispatch late Friday which gave no further details. South Sudan halted crude production in early 2012, cutting off most of its revenue after accusing Khartoum of theft in a row over export fees. China was the biggest buyer of the oil.