The number of Somali refugees in Kenya has passed the 45,000 mark and humanitarian agencies are worried about congestion in camps.

Although the Kenya-Somali border has been closed since early last year, the UNHCR said there has been a steady influx of asylum seekers at Dadaab refugee camp.

Dadaab, in north-eastern Kenya, and considered one of the world's oldest, biggest and most congested refugee camps, is now home to more than 215,000 people, a 25-percent increase since the beginning of the year.

Ramadhan

"The recent influx has worsened the overcrowding and we have made decongesting the camp a priority," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"We, however, fear that the movement of refugees is likely to increase with the end of Ramadhan next week."

He said that the Government had identified additional land in Fafi District where another camp would be built.

Mr Redmond said the upsurge of refugees comes amid reports of fresh fighting, especially in Mogadishu in what has been described as "the worst since the beginning of the latest insurgency in February last year."

He said estimates from UNHCR's humanitarian partners in Mogadishu showed at least 15,000 people have been uprooted, adding, almost half of the newly displaced civilians have moved to safer parts of Mogadishu, while others had fled towards Afgooye town, an area already crammed with more than 300,000 internally displaced people.

Catastrophic

The new wave of displacement in Mogadishu is worsening an already catastrophic situation in a war-torn country where more than one million people have been displaced.

"Some 700,000 people fled Mogadishu last year alone. We estimate that since the beginning of this year, another 160,000 people fled," he said.

"Our local partners in the city say people are confused, traumatised and fleeing massive and indiscriminate shelling and violence that has killed some 200 people and wounded scores of civilians."