GENEVA (AFP) — The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said Friday that increasing violence had forced it to suspend aid distribution operations in an eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Our office in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province yesterday halted a distribution of aid to displaced people amid a fresh eruption of violence," said spokesman Ron Redmond at UNHCR headquarters here Friday.
"Hundreds of people have fled fighting in the Rutshuru area since the clashes began at the weekend."
The newly arrived internally displaced people (IDP) had harrowing tales, Redmond said. "Some said their homes were destroyed and their possessions looted, while others had lost touch with their children.
"Most of those arriving in the IDP sites are women and children. Our staff say that medical assistance is urgently needed amid fears of a cholera outbreak."
UNHCR had also suspended the registration of new arrivals at sites for internally displaced people in the Rutshuru area, some 70 kilometres (42 miles) north of the provincial capital Goma, the spokesman said.
"We had been helping the government register the hundreds of newly displaced, who have added to an estimated IDP population of some 860,000 in North Kivu."
Redmond said the suspensions followed reports of new fighting Thursday between government soldiers and fighters of the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) movement near the Kinyandoni Anglican IDP site.
"The latest round of displacement in North Kivu came after a splinter faction of the FDLR reportedly raided villages late Saturday near the town of Kiwanja in the Rutshuru area," he said. Aid agencies had reported one woman killed in the attacks.
UNHCR staff and other aid workers reported many new arrivals at sites around Kiwanja, most sheltering in public buildings.
The displacement in the Rutshuru area came three months after government and rival armed groups signed an accord aimed at bringing lasting peace to the eastern region after more than a decade of conflict.
The accord had generally been holding but tensions have remained high, the UNHCR spokesman said.
A peace agreement in 2003 formally brought years of strife to a close, but fighting soon flared again in Nord-Kivu.
There are an estimated 1.3 million internally displaced people in the vast central African country and some 350,000 Congolese refugees outside.
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