Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Kenyan government says the flow of refugees -- around 1,500 a day -- is unsustainable, African independent newspaper Daily Nation reported.
Nairobi says the international community must act to tackle the problems inside Somalia.
This has highlighted the huge divide between the Kenyan government and aid organizations.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Saturday that it will start moving Somali refugee families into a new area of Kenya's overcrowded Dadaab refugee complex. The new site, known as Kambioos, is close to the Hagadera camp, one of Dadaab's three refugee camps.
More than 70,000 Somalis fleeing drought, famine and conflict have arrived at Kenya's Dadaab camp over the past two months, pushing the overall population to about 440,000.
Meanwhile, more malaria and cholera deaths have been reported from the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says some 4,272 cases of acute watery diarrhea have been recorded in Mogadishu so far this year.
The agency says more than 180 people have already fallen victim to the disease in Mogadishu and surrounding areas and that half of the victims are children under the age of two.
Aid agencies say existing facilities cannot cope with the catastrophe.
In other developments, the World Food Program has warned that the worst of the famine in the region is still ahead. It has urged the international community to scale up its support.
The drought and famine have affected millions of people across Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Somalia has been the hardest-hit country in what is being described as the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years.
The UN has declared famine in five regions in Somalia and says that the international humanitarian response to the crisis has been insufficient.
The United Nations has also warned that more than thirteen children out of every 10,000 aged less than five die in the Somalia famine zone every day.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991.