Khartoum- An Irish woman kidnapped more than two months ago in Sudan's Darfur region has been allowed to phone her mother, a development that officials said showed progress in negotiations with her abductors.

Sharon Commins, from Dublin, and Hilda Kawuki, from Uganda, who both work for Irish aid group GOAL, were seized in their north Darfur compound by a group of armed men in July.

It has become the longest running abduction in a new wave of kidnappings in Darfur that has crippled the humanitarian effort in the strife-torn region.

The abductors allowed Commins to make one phone call to her mother in Ireland on Thursday, Sudan's state minister for humanitarian affairs Abdel Baqi al-Jailani told Reuters on Friday.

Sudanese officials say they have been negotiating with the kidnappers through tribal elders.

Jailani has in the past said the abductors are members of a Darfuri nomadic tribe who seized the women to get a ransom.

He said he was not sure whether this was the first time Commins had managed to phone home, but it was certainly her first call for a long period.