Sudan expelled senior European and Canadian envoys today, accusing the pair of "interfering" in the country's affairs and declaring them persona non grata.

Khartoum announced this morning that it was removing Kent Degerfeld, the EU envoy, along with Nuala Lawlor, the Canadian charge d'affaires.

Their removal came only hours after the publication of an Amnesty International report which claimed that Sudan was continuing to fly planes apparently filled with weapons into Darfur.

Canadian and European diplomats said that they had no idea why the two had been expelled, and the European Commission confirmed that Mr Degerfeld, a Swede, was away on holiday when the expulsion order came through.

Omar Hassan Bashir, the Sudanese President, has been accused of secretly funding a civil war raging in the region by supplying arms to the Arab janjawid militia, who are believed to have carried out mass killings, rapes and robberies in villages inhabited by a number of Darfurian tribes. The US has described the situation as genocide.

This year a separate report disclosed that the Sudanese Government had been circumventing an international arms embargo by painting its planes in UN colours to launch bombing raids in the region.

Today's expulsions threaten a peace deal which had seen President Bashir agree to allow 26,000 international peacekeepers to be placed in the region. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, was due to travel to Khartoum to discuss the arrangement next month.

"Sudan has summoned the envoy of the European Commission and the Canadian charge d’affaires and informed them they were considered persona non grata because they interfered in Sudanese affairs," Ali al-Sadek, a Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman, told the official Suna news agency, announcing the expulsions this morning.

Canada and the European Commission immediately demanded an explanation from the Sudanese Government. "We have asked them why they expelled our charge d’affaires," Rodney Moore, the Canadian foreign ministry spokesman, said.

"Mrs Lawlor, in the best tradition of Canadian diplomacy, defended our values of freedom, democracy, personal rights and the rule of law."

Antonia Mochan, the European Commission spokeswoman, confirmed that Mr Degerfeld was not even in the country when Sudan claimed he had been summoned. "He wasn’t in Sudan when this letter was written," said spokeswoman Antonia Mochan. "He was, and is, on leave."

Rob Crilly, The Times's Africa Correspondent, said that the expulsions - along with revelations in the latest Amnesty report - illustrate the Sudanese Government's disregard for past agreements.

"This shows two things. Firstly, Khartoum does not care whatsoever about international reaction to anything that it does. Secondly, whenever there is any possibility of peace talks resuming, President Bashir steps up both the military and political offensive in order to get the best possible position before any agreement is reached.

"It makes Gordon Brown and the United Nations look a little ridiculous. Every time there is a deal, international figures always shout it from the rooftops as a great breakthrough, but in reality Bashir's Government does whatever it pleases."

The United Nations estimates that at least 200,000 people have died and up to 2.5m have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in February 2003. President Bashir, however, has claimed the casualty figure is "less than 9,000," and claimed that Western media reports of greater casualties are part of a worldwide Israeli-orchestrated conspiracy.

Today, Amnesty claimed that Sudan was continuing to defy a UN arms embargo, based on photographs it said were taken in July showing weapons being unloaded from a Russian-made jet at an airport in Darfur.

“The Sudanese Government is still deploying weapons into Darfur in breathtaking defiance of the UN arms embargo and Darfur peace agreements," the report said.

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