NAIROBI - Aid agencies in Somalia fear they will soon face a swelling tide of human misery after the outbreak of war in a country that is already one of the poorest and most violent in the world.

Soldiers loyal to the Somali government ride on military vehicles near the town of Jowhar December 27, 2006. [Reuters]

Fighting between the Somali government and the rival Islamist movement is disrupting relief supplies and aid workers say they will have to cope with casualties from the front lines and the flight of thousands of people from conflict zones

"Our colleagues in the field have never seen such devastating violence in Somalia in 10 years," Pedram Yazdi, a delegate for the Somalia operation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told Reuters.

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday it was temporarily suspending air drops of relief aid in Somalia.

It also temporarily recalled to Kenya two Mi-8 helicopters and 25 humanitarian workers, including eight international staff, from the Somali port city of Kismayu.

"This decision was taken following a request from the authorities in Kismayu because of expected instability in the area," WFP said in a statement.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said it was positioning relief supplies along the Somali border for 50,000 people and was buying supplies for an additional 100,000 people expected to be displaced by the fighting.

"UNHCR emergency response teams are on standby, ready to be sent to the region from around the world," the agency said in a statement. "Inside Somalia, thousands of people fleeing the conflict are reported to be in a desperate situation."

Despite a week of warfare in southern Somalia between the Islamists and the Ethiopian-backed interim government, there has not yet been the mass exodus of refugees many feared.

However, witnesses report people streaming away from flashpoint areas and aid workers at northern Kenya's Dadaab refugee camps are preparing for a worst case scenario of 200,000 people crossing the border from Somalia.

REFUGEE CAMPS

Already this year 34,000 Somalis, including many who fled fighting when the Islamists took the capital Mogadishu and a swathe of south Somalia in June, have joined one of Dadaab's three camps of flimsy huts built on sandy scrubland.

The camps currently house 168,000 people, according to the UNHCR.

Before last week's flare-up, more than half a million of Somalia's 10 million people were receiving emergency aid due in part to a drought followed by the worst floods for years.

"Should this conflict continue it will be a massive burden on aid agencies trying to bring relief to the already hostile area," WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon said.

Since Somalia sank into anarchy following the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, international aid agencies have struggled to operate there because of security risks to their staff. Most rely on local Somali personnel.

Both sides in the Somali conflict say they have killed hundreds but there has been no independent verification.

The ICRC says its staff have verified at least 800 wounded admitted to local clinics during a week of fighting.

"The figure is rising every day. We don't have figures of deaths because they are not brought to the hospitals," Yazdi said. "But considering the daily increase of wounded, it is easy to say the violence has already killed many."

Yazdi said the ICRC was supporting 23 clinics across south-central Somalia and three hospitals in the Mogadishu area.

U.N. children's agency UNICEF said youngsters were particularly at risk due to separation from families, displacement and conscription by both sides.

"An increase in recruitment and use of children under the age of 18 in armed forces and groups by all parties to the conflict has also been observed, which is another serious violation of international law," UNICEF said in a statement.