By mutual agreement between Sudanese and UN authorities, offices and barracks will be built close to the airport at Kassala, Sudan's Akhbar Al-Yum newspaper reported.

According to the paper, the UN force is to number 7,000 troops, although no official UN decision has been announced on the size of a possible contingent.

The peace treaty between southern rebels and the Khartoum government signed on Sunday ended 21 devastating years of war that claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced another four million people.