By Betel Miarom N'DJAMENA, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The U.N. World Food Programme has suspended non-emergency food aid to more than 50,000 people in eastern Chad as increased violence there forces relief agencies to scale back their operations, WFP said on Tuesday. In the last two weeks, rebels opposed to Chadian President Idriss Deby attacked and briefly occupied Abeche, the main hub for humanitarian operations in eastern Chad, and also temporarily seized other eastern towns, including Guereda. The attacks have worsened insecurity in eastern Chad, which was already suffering a spillover of violence from the conflict-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have been killed since 2003. U.N. agencies and aid NGOs said on Monday they were pulling back more than 200 staff from Guereda and two other towns, Iriba and Bahai, leaving only skeleton teams to help run refugee camps housing more than 100,000 Sudanese refugees in this area alone. While WFP said it would continue to feed the total of more than 200,000 refugees from Darfur who live in camps near the border with Sudan, the increased insecurity had forced it to suspend all non-emergency activities in eastern Chad. "WFP took the difficult decision to suspend projects which help children and communities such as school feeding and food-for-work programmes due to the dangers of working in the prevailing volatile and unpredictable climate," the U.N. agency said in a statement. "The suspension of these activities will affect at least 56,000 Chadians," it added. WFP said food for distribution in December to the Sudanese refugees housed in the 12 camps in eastern Chad -- considered emergency aid -- was already in place. Food trucks were moving into the region from Libya and Cameroon, the agency said. But it feared further fighting in eastern Chad could sever these vital supply lines. "SITUATION TOO VOLATILE" "There are hundreds of thousands of people, refugees from Sudan and Chadians, who depend on us for their daily needs," WFP Chad Country Director, Felix Bamezon, said. "WFP and our partners have a huge job to do. For that we need a measure of calm to return, at present the situation is too volatile for our staff to work normally," he added. Chad's government, which accuses Sudan of backing the anti-Deby rebels, said on Tuesday its forces were "mopping up" around Guereda. Khartoum denies that it helps the insurgents, who have carried out a spate of attacks this year, including a raid on the capital N'Djamena in April. Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said that in the fighting around Guereda in the last few days government forces killed 120 rebels, including one of their commanders. He said the rebel dead included the 14-year-old son of Timane Erdimi, the leader of the Rally of Democratic Forces (RAFD), whose fighters were among the rebels that attacked Guereda. Doumgor put government losses at 10 killed. There was no independent confirmation of these casualties.
