Ethnic violence in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo has left some 54,000 civilians at risk of death or disease, the United Nations Children’s Fund warned on Friday.

Children, the sick and aged are most vulnerable after aid agencies suspended operations in the lawless Ituri region where the displaced are staying in camps after fleeing fighting in recent months.

U.N. peacekeepers killed 50 people during a gunbattle near the town of Bunia with militia fighters on Tuesday, five days after nine Bangladeshi U.N. troops were killed in the same area.

The violence prompted humanitarian organisations to pull out.

“Because of the breakdown of essential humanitarian supply lines, there is a real risk to lives of the displaced. The first to die will be the most vulnerable - young children, the sick, the elderly,” said Massimo Nicoletti Altimari, head of UNICEF operations in Bunia.

Warfare, mainly between ethnic Lendu and rival Hema factions, has killed 50,000 people in Ituri since 1999. The conflict is rooted in land and commercial rivalries in a region rich in gold, diamonds and timber.

UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said the violence appeared to be “spiralling beyond control,” and that her agency had been forced to abandon the civilians “because we can’t be sure that our own staff won’t be killed.” The agency fears a surge in the number of displaced persons unless the escalating violence is halted, she said.

But the displaced have little prospects or incentive to go home, because Congolese soldiers have looted their homes, fields and livestock, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said.

“A big problem is nonpayment of salaries to Congolese government soldiers…Consequently soldiers looted homes, farms and livestock,” WFP spokesman Simon Pluess told a briefing. “The instability in the region makes it very difficult for farmers to cultivate,” he added.

On Thursday, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said that women and children are being brutally gang-raped in Ituri in what amounts to crimes against humanity.