At least nine people were killed Thursday when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a funeral for the victims of a roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials said.

"A suicide attacker detonated himself when he was identified by the police," said Khawani, the deputy security chief of eastern Laghman province where the attack took place, who goes by one name.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced Thursday its withdrawal from two conflict-hit Sudanese states, saying the government had made it impossible to provide help.

"Because of the multiple denials of access, obstructions and blockages from the Sudanese authorities, the Brussels-based section of MSF has been forced to leave Sudan," it said.

Wheeling suitcases and hauling bags, residents of Svitlodarsk peered into a bus departing from this heavily shelled east Ukrainian town.

"Is there still room?" one woman asked, anxious to send her teenage son to safety.

South Sudan's president and rebel leader met Thursday for the latest round of peace talks mediated by East African leaders aimed at ending their 13-month-old civil war.

President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, whose rival armies continue to clash met face-to-face, met alongside presidents from the East African regional IGAD bloc in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

EU foreign ministers will consider further "robust measures" against Russia over the fighting in Ukraine when they meet in Brussels Thursday, Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin said.

His European counterparts are holding emergency talks on new sanctions after dozens of people were killed in clashes between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed rebels near the key port city of Mariupol.

Uganda has issued a three-month ultimatum to Democratic Republic of Congo to relocate hundreds of ex-rebel fighters or they will be handed to the United Nations, an army spokesman said Thursday.

The deadline follows clashes between the defeated M23 rebels and the Ugandan armed forces last month, when attempts to repatriate the insurgents saw around 1,000 fighters escape their camp in western Uganda, fearing for their safety if they were sent back to DR Congo.

A mother of seven has been accused of treason for calling the Ukrainian embassy about Russian troop movements in the latest sign of Moscow attempting to cover up its intervention in its neighboring state.

Svetlana Davydova, 36, was arrested last week by a group of men in black uniforms who burst into her apartment in the town of Vyazma, west of Moscow, her husband Anatoly Gorlov told AFP.

Mali's president pulled out of an African Union summit Thursday to visit the restive city of Gao following the deaths of protesters in violent demonstrations against the United Nations.

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita had been due to fly to Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, a day ahead of a meeting of the 54-nation bloc, but changed his plans following the bloodshed in Mali's restive north.

The F-16 fighter jet that crashed during a NATO exercise in Spain on Monday, killing 11, experienced a technical failure during takeoff and the two pilots tried to eject, the French air force said Thursday.

"What we know is that the crew of the F-16, quite quickly after takeoff, tried to eject, which confirms the technical failure," said General Denis Mercier, the French air force chief of staff, without giving details of the breakdown.

Over 38,000 Somali children are at "high risk" from dying from starvation despite hunger levels improving by almost a third across the war-torn nation, U.N. experts said Thursday.

The grim assessment, based on the latest data collected by the U.N., comes just over three years since intense drought and war sparked famine in the Horn of Africa nation, killing more than a quarter of a million people.