SYDNEY - Violent attacks on three remote villages in Papua New Guinea's (PNG) north has likely killed 26 people, including 16 children, whiled several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said.

"I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights," U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The death toll could rise to more than 50 as PNG authorities search for missing people, Turk said.

More than 200 people had to flee their homes after it was torched in the attacks that happened in the East Sepik province on July 16 and 18.

Home to hundreds of tribes and languages, the Pacific nation to Australia's north has a long history of tribal warfare. However, violence has ratcheted up over the past decade as villagers swapped bows and arrows for military rifles and elections deepened existing tribal divides.

Eight people were killed and 30 homes torched in fighting in the Enga province in May, while at least 26 men were killed in an ambush in the same region in February.

  - Reuters