Fresh fighting this month between former civil war foes in the Sudanese town of Abyei has displaced 60,000 people and tipped an already grave humanitarian situation into crisis, says a Medecins Sans Frontiers nurse evacuated from the region.

Colin Beckworth, a 32-year-old nurse on mission with MSF, was running a nutrition programme in the flashpoint town in central Sudan when he and colleagues were air-lifted to safety on May 15.

"In the two months I was there, the humanitarian situation was deteriorating markedly," said Beckworth in a phone interview from MSF's office in Nairobi. "There were large numbers of returnees (from Sudan's north-south civil war) and the capacity of the town to deal with them was limited.

"We were struggling to cope with the situation even before the attacks."

Fierce skirmishes in Abyei - which is claimed by both the Khartoum government and the semi-autonomous South - between the Sudanese army and former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army have threatened to rekindle conflict more than three years after the end of Africa's longest civil war.

The clashes, sparked by a local dispute, highlight simmering tensions in the oil-rich region amid delays over implementing a 2005 peace deal ending a war that killed 2 million people and drove 4 million more from their homes.

Abyei sits bang between the north and south of the country and former enemies have yet to agree precise borders or a local government for the region.

MSF's nutrition programme in Abyei was set up in February to improve the health of over 700 severely malnourished children, treating those most at risk as in-patients in a health ministry hospital while making weekly deliveries of supplementary foods to others.

But with almost half of the town's population of 130,000 forced to flee to nearby areas, the aid operation has come to an abrupt halt.

"Obviously we've lost touch with all those patients now," Beckworth said.

Now MSF is adapting to the new circumstances by sending emergency medical teams into surrounding areas - at the height of the rainy season - to try to get healthcare to the displaced.

An eight-strong surgical team in the town of Turalei, some two hours from Abyei, has already treated people injured in the attacks, while a three-person mobile clinic is operating in Agok, also two hours from the fighting.

"Given the size of the emergency, those teams are going to be extremely stretched," Beckworth said.

The U.N. Mission in Sudan, which has also evacuated most of its staff from the area, is warning that the conflict could have a dire impact on its humanitarian work.

Meanwhile, Beckworth said he hoped to get back to feeding the nutritionally compromised people of Abyei as soon as the security situation allowed, adding that the disruption will have exacerbated the severest cases he was treating.

"Those children are very at risk of dying because of their age and diseases," he said. "The need is going to be huge."

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