(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-15 23:36

Many of the internally displaced targeted for distribution of basic household commodities have taken refuge in about 10 different sites across the district, which is inhabited mainly by the Maasai community.

The UN refugee agency said it has dispatched more of its staff to Nairobi to assist the aid operation for tens of thousands of IDPs in various parts of the country. So far, 10 UNHCR staff have been deployed to support the IDP operation in Kenya.

The Kenyan government reports that there are an estimated 500 IDP sites scattered mainly in Rift Valley, Western, Nyanza and Nairobi provinces.

The sites continue to be transitory in nature with many people moving from the sites to their ancestral areas, where possible, or joining their kin in safer areas.

As calm returns to some parts of the country, the government estimates that IDP numbers in sites and community centers have dropped by nearly 50,000 -- from 255,000 at the beginning of last week to an estimated 203,000 by the close of last week.

Meanwhile, the number of people who have crossed the border from Kenya to Uganda has now reached more than 6,100, according to Ugandan authorities.

Refugees have gathered in several eastern border districts, including Manafwa, Busia, Malaba and Bukwo around Mt. Elgon.

The refugees are staying in schools and other public facilities, and with host families. Ugandan authorities want to move refugees to a temporary site in Mulanda.

More than 600 people died in a widespread and ethnically motivated post-election violence after opposition leader Raila Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the December 27 vote to win his re-election.

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