The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has sounded alarm over the situation of the displaced people in Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a UN spokesman said Friday.

After months of conflict between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups in Ituri region, UNHCR was recently able to obtain access to the area where they met some of the 150,000 formerly displaced people "who are now returning in hope of finding their homes," said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at the daily briefing, adding that "conditions are grim."

"Around 350,000 people are estimated to have fled the violence, and those who have returned so far are in many cases finding that their villages and homes have been reduced to ash," he said.

UNHCR "heard harrowing reports of barbaric violence," including armed groups attacking civilians with guns, arrows and machetes, entire villages razed, and farms and shops looted and damaged beyond repair, Haq added.

"The humanitarian challenges are enormous with hospitals, schools, and other key infrastructure destroyed," Haq said, adding that UNHCR "is providing emergency and transition shelter kits to replace houses that have been damaged or destroyed, as well as cash grants to meet immediate and critical needs."

However, the humanitarian appeal for the DRC continues to be "among the least-funded in the world" and UNHCR has received just 17 percent of the required 201 million U.S. dollars, he added.

A UN report last month estimated that more than 260 people had been killed in the recent intercommunal violence.

The Ituri conflict was a major conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern DRC. While the two groups had fought since as early as 1972, the name 'Ituri conflict' refers to the period of intense violence between 1999 and 2003. Armed conflict continues to the present day.