Nairobi/Khartoum - The joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur UNAMID said Thursday it would continue to provide security in a camp for internally displaced people following a deadly attack by Sudanese security forces.

UNAMID says 32 people, including women and children, died and 50 were injured in the attack in Sudan's restive Darfur province on August 25.

Sudanese security opened fire in the Kalma camp near the capital of South Darfur, Nyala, during what it said was an operation to retrieve a rebel weapon stockpile.

Nairobi  - Pirates seized a French sailing boat off the Somali coast and are holding their occupants hostage, reports said Wednesday.

The French government set up a crisis team to deal with the incident and appealed to the abductors to free the hostages.

Piracy off Somalia's lawless coast has surged in the last three months.

Two Germans seized on a yacht were released recently apparently after a ransom was paid. In April, French commandoes stormed a luxury yacht and arrested six pirates after freeing their hostages.

Nairobi/Mogadishu  - Humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Tuesday it had been forced to close a clinic in Somali capital Mogadishu due to increased violence.

MSF said a surge in fighting had led to "unacceptable security risks for patients and staff" and forced it to shut down the clinic in the Wardigley/Hodan area of Mogadishu.

"The fighting around the clinic has significantly increased," Marcel Langenbach, head of the MSF Emergency Team said in statement.

Nairobi/Kinshasa - Fighting has broken out between rebels and the army in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) said that rebels aligned with rebel General Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers exchanged fire for around eight hours in the North Kivu province on Thursday.

The fighting was the first major clash since a peace deal was signed with various rebel factions in the eastern town of Goma this January.

Nairobi/Yaounde - Dozens of people have died in northern Cameroon after a fuel tanker exploded, reports said Friday.