(refiles removing typo in headline)

By Charles Mangwiro

MAPUTO, April 6 (Reuters) - The U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is worried about a wave of xenophobic attacks on asylum seekers in Mozambique's northern Nampula province.

The UNHCR's Mozambican representative, Victoria Akyeampong, told Reuters mobs were targeting affluent business people from the Great Lakes region.

Akyeampong said at least four families had been attacked and their shops looted over allegations they were involved in child trafficking.

"There are xenophobia problems in Nampula against well-off refugees ... we are going to start a sensitization campaign against this malpractice," she said.

"They are being accused of human trafficking but after the UNHCR and the police documented and investigated the incidents, we established that it was a clear case of xenophobia.

"It's a serious matter of concern and we have engaged the government's Refugee Welfare Department, NAR, to try to reduce the escalating wave of attacks on refugees. The government has a good policy of encouraging refugees to be self-reliant."

Police say they have arrested five people suspected of taking part in the attacks and found them in possession of goods belonging to the Burundian and Congolese refugees.

Mozambique is sheltering more than 10,000 asylum seekers fleeing war-torn countries in the Great Lakes region.

One of the victims, Ussene Kabamba, told Radio Mozambique his stall was stormed by a gang armed with knives demanding that he leave Mozambique.

The head of public relations at the Nampula provincial police command, Oliveira Maneque, said police were doing everything in their power to curb such attacks.

"We should bear in mind that we Mozambicans were also once refugees in other countries fleeing from war, and even today there are Mozambicans living and prospering in various countries," he told the national broadcaster.

Mozambique generated more than 2 million refugees who fled into neighbouring countries at the height of a 16-year devastating civil war which ended in 1992.

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