The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Friday warned that an escalating confrontation between the armed forces of the Republic of Congo and suspected former rebels called the Ninjas has forcibly displaced thousands of people in southeastern Pool province and has disrupted farming in the country's most fertile region, a UN spokesman said here.

"UNHCR is concerned that some 13,000 displaced people soon may not have enough to eat as a result," Farhan Haq, deputy UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here.

Residents of Pool province are also having trouble getting health care and education because many state-employed medics and teachers have fled the area, he said.

In addition to these internal struggles, the Republic of Congo is home to some 55,000 refugees, most of them from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Angola, Haq added.

The government blames the violence on former members of the Ninjas, who signed agreements with the government to stop fighting in 2003, after wars and insurgencies dating back to the 1990s.

In recent weeks, the violence is reported to have increased, including an attack on a military vehicle in the Mindouli district in the southeast of the country last weekend that left two people dead. The Ninjas were also blamed for an attack in early October on the important railway link from the capital Brazzaville to the coast that left 14 people dead.

As a result of the latest clash, UN missions were suspended this week, but a UNHCR team was able to visit Pool late last month as part of a government-led mission. It found people's living conditions had deteriorated since the last visit in June. Enditem

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