United Nations Radio

The UN refugee agency UNHCR says its office in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province has halted distribution of aid to displaced people amid a fresh eruption of violence.

UNHCR's spokesman Ron Redmond says the agency also suspended the registration of new arrivals at sites for internally displaced people located 70 kilometres north of the provincial capital Goma.

"We had been helping the government register the hundreds of newly displaced, who have added to an estimated internally displaced population of some 860,000 in North Kivu. The suspensions came amid reports of new fighting yesterday between government soldiers and fighters from the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda movement."

The newly displaced people told UNHCR their homes were destroyed and their possessions looted, and some lost touch with their children. The clashes come three months after the signing of an accord in Goma between the government and rival armed groups aimed at bringing lasting peace to the eastern region after more than a decade of conflict.