Sudanese cool themselves off in the Nile amid high temperature and electricity power cuts in Khartoum, Sudan, April 27, 2021. (Photo: Xinhua)

An explosion killed at least four people at a sports venue in a key Sudanese Red Sea port city, medics said Sunday. 

The blast took place late Saturday at a busy sporting club in Port Sudan. It was not immediately clear who was behind the incident, which also involved an armed attack. 

"An explosive device went off at Al-Amir club ... killing four people," the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said in a statement. 

Three others were wounded after being shot or stabbed, it added.

"There was another attempt targeting a hotel in the city but it failed," the committee said without elaborating. 

Tensions have been simmering in recent weeks in Port Sudan where anti-government protesters have reportedly blocked roads amid rising insecurity. The doctors' committee, an independent union of medics, blamed "tribal strife" for Saturday's incident and urged security forces to step in.  

Sudan has been led by a transitional civilian-military administration following the April 2019 ouster of Islamist president Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years.

The country has since been undergoing a rocky period marked by a wrenching economic crisis and deepening political division.