Thousands of Somali refugees seeking safety in Kenya find themselves trapped in no man's land or homeless and hungry in camps washed out by floods, reports Komanda Ngure.

Woris Aden Hassan, 22, heaved her luggage onto a wooden platform and unzipped it for screening by a Kenyan security man.

It held her clothes, two cups, a plate, a frying pan, a dirty bed sheet and blanket and a small wad of notes - the only belongings she brought to Kenya after fleeing war in Somalia .

Hassan had traveled on foot from the Somali village of Dubley, about 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the border, where she then rode on a rickety van to Liboi, a screening centre for refugees.

There had been no fighting in Dubley, but with reports that war between Ethiopian troops and Islamic militia was edging toward the Kenyan border, she and hundreds of villagers fled in fear of being killed. Most were women, children and elderly men.

"You just can't wait until you see the soldiers," she said. "I saw a lot of elderly people who want to flee but they can't walk."

She and dozens of villagers were waiting to be transported to Dadaab, where aid agencies are operating three camps housing about 160,000 refugees, mainly Somalis.

Ethiopian soldiers marched into Somalia last month to assist the transitional federal government, elected into office two years ago but barred from entering the capital, Mogadishu, by the rival Islamic Courts Union.

TURNED AWAY

But even as Hassan's group waited to go to Dadaab, the Kenyan government sealed the border and turned back 400 other Somali refugees.

The move triggered strong protest from the U.N. refugee body (UNHCR), which accused Kenya of contravening international conventions and its own laws that seek to protect the lives of people fleeing war or persecution.

Defending the decision, Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Raphael Tuju said the refugees were in no real danger and could be held in camps for displaced people inside Somalia. He also said the government feared that fleeing Islamic militia and "terrorists" could pose as refugees to cross into Kenya.

Geoff Wordley, a senior emergency and response officer with UNHCR, said the last batch of Somali refugees had arrived in Dadaab on December 27, bringing to 30,000 the number who had crossed into Kenya to escape clashes between warlords, the Islamists and the current war.

But when officials went to pick up more refugees at a holding centre in Liboi on January 3, they were denied entry until late afternoon, when they found the refugees had been forcefully repatriated back to Somalia.

They are now staying in squalid conditions on a stretch of no man's land on the border.

"We have not been allowed to see them, and it's difficult to establish how many they are," Wordley said. "What we understand from contacts is that they have no food or medicine. They are living in the bush."

Wordley said the number of refugees waiting to cross into Kenya was in the thousands - a figure expected to rise if fighting intensified. The United States joined the fray this week, pounding villages believed to be sheltering al Qaeda suspects.

John Munyes, minister for special projects who also handles humanitarian aid for refugees, said this week the government had initiated talks with UNHCR to resolve the stalemate and allow genuine refugees into Kenya.

APPALLING CONDITIONS

Even if the Somalis are allowed to join their compatriots in Dadaab, appalling camp conditions there have raised alarm bells with humanitarian workers.

Recent flooding across the Horn of Africa has destroyed road networks, delaying desperately needed food shipments.

Dadaab is in a sun-scorched wasteland where no crops grows and temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). No tarmac roads or telephone networks connect it to the rest of the country.

The camp is a sprawling shantytown of fragile huts made of plastic sheeting, mud and twigs.

The floods submerged the homes of more than 5,000 refugees and destroyed the food reserves of about 14,000. UNHCR said more than 2,000 pit latrines were uprooted, turning the area into a sea of human waste.

Clementina Cantoni, an official from charity Care International, said there were high chances of cholera and malaria outbreaks.

Work is now underway to refill the toilets and build almost 100 new ones, she said, adding that floodwaters were being sprayed to stop mosquitoes from breeding.

On December 24, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) launched a special operation to airlift desperately needed food to the camps.

But spokesman Isaiah Ofuyo said WFP was depending on donors to plug a $6.7 million hole in its $16.6 million budget to airlift food to the camps as well as thousands of Kenyans cut off by floodwaters.

"We are counting on goodwill to sustain the operation for the next few weeks," he said.

WFP has also been airlifting food to southern Somalia but has evacuated staff from parts of the troubled country since the war broke out, Ofuyo said.

Even as food trickles into the camps, refuges face another problem: lack of firewood to cook it with.

UNHCR has contracted villagers to collect deadwood, which it then distributes to refugees. With roads destroyed, there is no way for trucks to transport firewood collected in the bush, Wordley said.

"It raises a serious concern about their nutrition," he added.