Hundreds of baton-wielding riot police barred Sudanese opposition activists from demonstrating on Wednesday, arresting dozens and beating up others, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Some 500 riot police were deployed in Abu Janzeer square, in the center of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, after an alliance of opposition parties announced plans to hold a demonstration there at 1:00 pm (1000 GMT).

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir met with Egypt's new military rulers on Tuesday, the official MENA agency reported, marking the first visit to post-Mubarak Egypt by an Arab head of state.

Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, met with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who heads the country's ruling military council.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not stand for reelection, an official at his National Congress Party said on Monday, while insisting he was "not under pressure" from the wave of protests rocking the Arab world.

"I can confirm, 100 percent, that Bashir is not going to run for president in the next election. He will actually give a chance to different personalities to compete for the position," Rabie Abdul Ati told Agence France Presse.

With flags flying, drums beating and incense burning, thousands of Sudanese faithful converged in Khartoum's Mulid square for the culmination of an Islamic festival that allowed them to leave their daily cares behind.

"Today is a very special day. The people, when they come here, they put all their problems behind them and remember the good things in life," said Ibrahim Ismaili, 40.

Sudanese security services on Thursday arrested prominent government critic Mariam al-Mahdi, daughter of the prime minister whom veteran President Omar al-Bashir ousted in a 1989 coup, a member of her Umma party said.

Mahdi was arrested as she went with a group of activists to petition the security forces for the release of protesters detained nearly two weeks ago, Habab Mubarak, the daughter of another leading Umma party member Mubarak al-Fadil, told Agence France Presse.

South Sudan's minister of cooperatives and rural development Jimmy Lemi Milla and his bodyguard were shot dead in Juba on Wednesday, the southern army's spokesman said, in what appeared to be a personal dispute.

"There was shooting at the ministries (complex), in which the minister of cooperatives and rural development was killed, as well as his bodyguard," the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) spokesman Philip Aguer told Agence France Presse.

Southern Sudan was well on track to become the world's newest state Monday after final results of its historic independence referendum showed that 98.83 percent of its people had voted for secession.

The results -- displayed at an announcement ceremony in Khartoum -- revealed that, out of 3,837,406 valid ballots cast, only 44,888 votes, or 1.17 percent, favored the status quo of unity with the north.

Southern Sudan's referendum commission said Sunday that more than 99 percent of voters in the south opted to secede from the country's north in a vote held earlier this month.

Thousands of people have joined a Facebook group calling for anti-government protests across Sudan on Sunday, the day preliminary results are due out on the vote on southern independence.

Entitled "January 30, a word to the Sudanese youth," the Facebook site shows an angry protestor holding an Arabic placard that reads: "A better Sudan."

Three Bulgarian airline employees, working on a contract for the United Nations in Sudan, were kidnapped in the east African country, the Bulgarian foreign ministry said Thursday.

"A crew of three Bulgarian nationals, working for a Bulgarian airline company operating flights on a U.N. contract, were kidnapped in north Sudan," the ministry said in a statement.