Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir landed in Nigeria's capital on Sunday to attend a continental health summit as rights groups slammed the "shameful" decision to host a leader charged with war crimes.

Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, landed in Abuja at 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) ahead of an African Union Summit on infectious diseases.

Somalia's semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland has suspended long-awaited local elections, its government said Sunday, saying the risk of violence was too great to hold them.

"Puntland hereby suspends the local council elections" due to held Monday, a government statement read, warning of what it called "domestic spoilers and external manipulators funding and organizing instability and election violence".

Four police were shot dead on Sunday in an ambush by unknown gunmen in Russia's violence-plagued Caucasus region of Dagestan, the local interior ministry said.

The police drove to the village of Burshi where they had received a report of a robbery, and were shot dead as they were leaving the area, Russian news agencies quoted the Interior Ministry as saying.

At least 200 people have been wounded in a week of bitter fighting in South Sudan's Jonglei state, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the country said Sunday.

"Some 200 casualties have arrived in Manyabol", a remote village in the troubled eastern state of Jonglei, where militia gunmen from rival ethnic groups have been battling, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan Tony Lanzer said in a statement.

More than 55,000 refugees from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have arrived in Uganda after fleeing a rebel attack, Red Cross officials said Sunday, a dramatic rise from earlier estimates.

"Given such numbers there is need for urgent humanitarian assistance, as some of the refugees are sick and have left all their belongings in Congo," Uganda Red Cross official Catherine Ntabadde told AFP.

A rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region accused government-linked militia on Sunday of carrying out an ambush which killed seven peacekeepers and wounded 17.

"We don't have any doubt that the act was done by government militia, because militia are deployed in Khor Abeche area," said Abdullah Moursal, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army's Minni Minnawi faction.

The Philippines said Sunday it was aiming swiftly to sign a final peace deal with Muslim rebels to end a rebellion that has killed tens of thousands, following a major breakthrough in talks.

Chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said the government could reach a final deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) within weeks after both sides agreed on a wealth-sharing formula late Saturday.

A Florida jury late Saturday found neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a racially charged trial that transfixed the nation.

The trial raised strong passions among those who believed that Zimmerman -- whose father is white and whose mother is Peruvian -- had racially profiled Martin, and those convinced that the volunteer watchman acted in self-defense.

President Thein Sein left Myanmar Sunday for a visit to Britain and France, an official said, as the former junta general looks to build on support for his much-lauded reforms.

"The president left Yangon this morning to visit Britain and France," a government official told AFP without giving further details of the visit, Thein Sein's second trip to Europe in months.

Seven police officers were injured in Belfast after being attacked with petrol bombs in a second night of violence by Protestant rioters in the Northern Irish capital, a spokeswoman said Sunday.

Bricks, bottles, furniture and other missiles were also hurled on Saturday night by hooded youths, some with British flags covering their faces.