More than 1,000 South Sudanese troops died during the battle for Sudan's main oilfield of Heglig, the Sudanese armed forces commander said on Monday.

"The numbers of killed from SPLM are 1,200," Kamal Marouf said during an address to about 2,000 troops in the town, from which Southern forces said they had withdrawn at the weekend.

Sudan has not said how many of its own soldiers died in the operation.

During its 10-day occupation of Heglig, South Sudan's army said 19 of its soldiers had been killed while 240 Sudanese soldiers lost their lives.

Sudan did not allow journalists or other observers into the Heglig area during the standoff with the South, which on Sunday said it had completed its pullout from the region.

The move followed intense international diplomacy to pull the two sides back from the brink of a wider war.

Khartoum claimed to have defeated the South and forced it out.

South Sudan occupied the oil field on April 10, in a move that coincided with waves of air strikes against its territory.