By Aaron Maasho
DOLO ADO, Ethiopia, Aug 6 (Reuters) - When Somali mother Eblah Sheikh Aden gathered her seven children and set off walking for Ethiopia to find food, she never imagined she would end up sending some of her brood back into the heart of famine.
But that's just what the 35-year-old did to four of them when she realised they were not going to get fed in time at one of the Horn of Africa's overflowing refugee camps -- swelled by a deadly mixture of drought, war and bored donors.
"They were extremely sick and there wasn't food here," she told Reuters in the Kobe Camp in Ethiopia. "I couldn't watch them die and had to make a decision."
It took Eblah two days to walk to the camp but another nine days for her to be registered to stay, such are the numbers of sick and hungry streaming in.
Now that she has managed to register her family, she says she hopes her husband will bring the four children back to the camp soon.
The United Nations says about 3.6 million people are now at risk of starvation in Somalia and about 12 million people across the Horn of Africa region, including in Ethiopia and Kenya.
When trucks loaded up with food descend on the sprawling Kobe complex they leave both a swirl of dust and a trail of people in their wake, as dozens of refugees jostle for space to grab that day's rations.
This week, as aid workers and police scattered a crowd to maintain order, 68-year-old Hasano Abderahman cast a lonely and confused figure amid the boisterous hungry, scurrying with a worried look on his face past queues, tents and shacks trying to find somewhere to bury his baby.
"We had taken Addo to the clinic but he never recovered," said Hasano, who had fled southern Somalia with his wife and his one month-old son. "I'm now looking for space to bury him," he said, nearly an hour after Addo died from severe malnutrition.
One aid worker told Reuters the fate of Addo was common in the area's refugee camps, and said that the majority of children were suffering from severe malnutrition.
"The mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. It's very alarming," he said. The figures are even more alarming among those dwelling in the scrubs awaiting registration for several days, he added.
NUMBERS "TREMENDOUS"
Hasano, Eblah and their families fled a region in Somalia that has been declared a famine zone by the United Nations -- a rare call for agencies used to dealing with drought.
The body says it expects the whole of southern Somalia to follow, as rebels hinder food shipments and they struggle to fill shortfalls in funding to respond to the disaster, despite constant international appeals.
The World Food Programme (WFP) says aid groups cannot reach more than 2 million Somalis in the worst-hit areas because the Islamist al Shabaab fighters have blocked access to most aid agencies.
In Ethiopia, the U.N. refugee agency and a government agency have established four camps along the border with Somalia to accommodate a refugee population that now exceeds 100,000.
After peaking at 2,000 a day last month, the number of people streaming into Ethiopia has fallen during the past few days -- numbering in the hundreds at the beginning of this week.
But the crowds keep on coming and an MSF spokeswoman said people in the camps are now suffering from measles, watery diarrhoea and respiratory tract infections.
For some refugees, the wait has been unbearable.
As the heat soared with the afternoon sun, 34-year-old Dakat Ibrahim spread out an old rug on the parched earth for a nap, her three boys -- all emaciated -- lying next to her.
"We are hungry. We've been hungry since all our livestock perished the past two months," she said, after spending the day collecting food and firewood.
The aid workers trying to help people like Dakat say they are struggling to manage the influx, with no end in sight to the Somali conflict.
"The population of refugees coming over has slowed down but there's still almost 20,000 outside of camps needing shelter, food and medical care," said Jo Hegenauer, head of regional operations for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Everyone's here to help, its just that the number of people who have arrived is tremendous," he said. (Editing by Barry Malone and Mark Heinrich)
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