Uganda's army has secured a UN refugee camp whose 24,000 occupants fled during an attack by rebels yesterday.
An army spokesman said they attackers fired indiscriminately into terrified crowds.
Aid workers said initial reports showed at least 14 people were killed in the attack by Lord's Resistance Army rebels, but they feared the actual death toll could be much higher.
Army troops pursued the rebels through the night, having reoccupied the Acholi-Pii camp, 255 miles north of Kampala, after the attackers fled last night.
"We gave them a bloody nose," an army spokesman said.
The LRA, led by self-styled prophet Joseph Kony, has said it wants to overthrow the government of President Yoweri Museveni and rule according to the Biblical Ten Commandments.
The rebels have abducted thousands of children and mutilated villagers during their 15-year insurgency, which has crippled much of the economy in northern Uganda. The Ugandan army launched a campaign to stamp out the LRA in March, attacking its bases in neighboring Sudan with the permission of the Sudanese government.
World Vision Uganda, which has been working in the north of the east African country since 1988, appealed to multinational organizations for donations to raise €330,000 for emergency relief in the war-affected region.
"Our appeal seeks to enable World Vision to provide emergency shelter and blankets to about 10,000 homeless families as soon as possible," Mr Robby Muhumuza, World Vision Uganda's national director said in a statement.
Officials from the UN refugee and food agencies headed for two villages believed to be housing many of the 24,000 refugees who fled the camp, to assess how best to help them.
The Acholi-Pii camp was home to refugees from a civil war in neighboring Sudan.