Fighting in northern Mali has forced nearly 60,000 people to flee their homes over the last four weeks, Russia Today quoted a UN aid agency as saying on Friday.

The new wave brings to more than 100,000 the number of Malians displaced in the desert north.

The region has been in turmoil since a 2012 Tuareg-led separatist rebellion was hijacked by Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants.

The vast majority of the newly displaced were from the Timbuktu region, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.