The United Nations Children`s Fund on Monday highlighted the `desperate` plight of an estimated 60,000 children caught up in recent fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

They were among up to 100,000 civilians forced to flee the violence in the region of Nord-Kivu, bordering Rwanda, UNICEF said.

`The condition of newly displaced children and women is desperate. Thousands have had very little to eat since fleeing,` said the statement.

`Their access to clean water and health care has been minimal. Hundreds of children are presumed to have been separated from their families, forced to fend for their survival on their own,` it added.

`The consequences could be fatal for scores of children, both those displaced and those hosting the displaced,` the statement added.

There was a serious risk of cholera and measles epidemics, both of which would spread quickly among large numbers on the move. Malaria was even more of a threat to children with no protection from mosquitoes, it added.

Cut off from food, there risk of malnutrition was also sure to increase, said UNICEF>

`Displaced children are highly vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, violence, and recruitment into armed groups, being forced from the protection of their parents, communities, and schools.`

The eastern region of Nord-Kivu has been the focus of last week`s fighting between government troops and rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) led by Laurent Nkunda.

`Up to 100,000 people, around 60 percent of which are children, have fled their homes due to heavy fighting between belligerent armed groups in North Kivu last week,` said UNICEF.

`Around 250,000 people are now believed to have been displaced in the last two months bringing the total number of internally displaced to around 1,000,000, 20 percent of the entire North Kivu population,` it added.

Nkunda`s forces made significant gains in the northern part of the region, where aid workers delivering aid to rebel-held territory around Rutshuru found camps for displaced people emptied and razed to the ground.

The UN refugee agency said on Friday they had `credible reports` that rebel soldiers had looted and burned the camps, causing 50,000 people to flee.

Also Friday, the UN`s top human rights official Navi Pillay condemned government troops for having gone on a rampage of looting, killing and rape in the regional capital of Goma after having been routed by rebel forces.