Thousands of Somali refugees who are fleeing clashes between the Ethiopia-backed Somali transitional government and now-defeated Islamists have been refused entry to Kenya at the common border, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 4,000 Somalis are stranded at Dhobley along the Kenya-Somalia border waiting to be cleared to seek refuge in the East African nation.

"About 4,000 Somalis are said to be in Dhobley along the Kenya- Somalia border, waiting, not yet able to cross. UNHCR has reported the arrival of 200 new Somalis in Liboi since last week," OCHA said in a statement.

"There are continuing reports of displacement from Mogadishu into surrounding villages, particularly from the areas of Karen, Medina and Wabari, where SCIC (Somali Council of Islamic Courts) support was strong," it said.

The new developments came as Kenya reinforced its border security to prevent fleeing Islamists from crossing into the country, which already hosts about 160,000 Somali refugees who fled the more than 15 years of turbulence in the war-ravaged nation.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that there are more than 200 refugees who have come in at Liboi and another 100 in Kiunga border points.

A regional spokeswoman with the UNHCR in Kenya, Millicent Mutuli, however said the agency has not managed to gain access to the border areas to ascertain their condition.

"We have advice from the government that there is security personnel at the border and they would prefer that we do not go at the border at this point," Mutuli said by telephone.

She expressed fear that there could be other people coming in directly to the refugee camps without passing through the border crossing though she said they are not in large numbers.

According to Mutuli, the UNHCR is prepared to handle up to 50, 000 new refugees within the region that covers Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen.

"We are talking to the government even as today and our staff in Daadab are in touch with provincial authorities in Garissa to see if we could get access to Liboi and bring people back to Daadab. But if the government is in a position to help them and to bring them across to the refugee camps that would be the ideal," she said.

Over the last two weeks, the formerly powerless transitional government has managed to extend its power all over Somalia, with the help of a large Ethiopian force in defeating the powerful Islamist militia and the Kenyan forces, which sealed off the Somali border to thwart Islamists from regrouping in Kenya.

Kenyan police said they are probing 10 suspected financiers of the Islamic militias who tried to penetrate into the country after they lost control of their last stronghold in Kismayo to an allied Somali-Ethiopian force.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki currently heads the regional grouping IGAD and has pledged to convene a "summit early in the new year in order to urgently discuss the unfolding events in Somalia."

African peacekeepers in support of the transitional government will be on the agenda and by now, both Uganda and Nigeria have offered to send contingents.

It is hoped that these African peacekeepers could take over from Ethiopian troops as soon as possible to avoid further anti- Ethiopian sentiments among skeptical Somalis.

Also the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Tuesday told the parliament that he wanted his troops to withdraw from Somalia as soon as possible, hopefully within two weeks, if peacekeepers were able to take over by then.

Source: Xinhua