Since December, more than 76,000 hungry, thirsty and ailing peasants and pastoralists from at least five of the war-shattered country's worst-hit provinces have trekked to the mean streets of the bullet-scarred city in search of sustenance, according to aid workers who expect the numbers to rise.

"This is the beginning," Nicholas Haan of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization's (FAO) Food Security Assessment Unit said on Friday in the capital of neighboring Kenya. "More people will do the same trip in search of food and water."

Sheikh Mohamud Omar, who arrived in Mogadishu from his village near Baidoa in southwestern Bay province eight weeks ago, tells excruciating tales of deprivation in his home region.

"One meal a day was standard for the past six months, but even that meager food is disappearing and people are heading towards maybe one meal every two or three days," he told AFP.

"What we expect there soon is no meal at all and starvation," Omar said as he stood near a market stall, predicting that many -- mainly women, children and elderly -- would not survive the drought in Bay and neighboring Bakol province without an immediate infusion of outside assistance.

While the FAO says up to 11 million people in four nations -- Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia -- are deemed at imminent risk of starvation, the nearly two million affected Somalis face perhaps the most extreme difficulties.

With virtually no infrastructure for relief distribution, piracy cutting ocean-going food aid supply lines, rampant instability from 15 years of anarchy and its worst harvest in more than a decade, Somalia has become the poster child for the Horn of Africa drought disaster, officials say.

"We are facing a humanitarian challenge of historic dimensions," the UN special envoy for Somalia, Francois Fall, said last week, warning of "extraordinary suffering and loss of life."

The recent movements have raised fears that the chronic unrest that Somalia has suffered for more than a decade could get worse as livestock die in increasing numbers, crops fail and farmers and herders compete for rapidly diminishing food and water or leave for the city.

"The number of people migrating is increasing (and) may lead to violence," FAO nutritionist Noreen Prendeville told reporters in Nairobi. "

Yet impoverished and insecure Mogadishu, the epicenter of the anarchic violence that has engulfed Somalia for the past 15 years, is far from a welcoming destination for many of the new arrivals who brush shoulders with heavily armed militiamen clustered around markets and squares.

"I abandoned the horror of hunger, but finding shelter is difficult here" said Ahmed Abdulle Mumin who fled Bakol with his wife and two children and whose family is now entirely dependent on handouts.

"There are too many of us to be helped," lamented Asha Adan, a mother of three, who was begging nearby and grew annoyed with a reporter's interruptions. "We don't want to hear your questions, I need food, do you have any?"

Indeed, the huge influx of their hungry country cousins has taken many in Mogadishu aback, overwhelmed rudimentary social services offered by private aid groups and taxed Islamic traditions of hospitality and charity among residents who already had little to offer.

"The local agencies are powerless, they have no money," said Medina Elmi, the chairwoman of Mogadishu's Save Somali Women and Children organization, in comments echoed by others.

"Cash is short and even though the people coming to Mogadishu are hungry, there are many people here that are too," said local journalist Hassan Dusos.

"We can hardly support the huge number of beggars," said Ali Muhyadin Ahmed, a stallowner at Mogadishu's main Bakara market. "We are eating less just to keep our businesses running."

But hunger keeps the Mogadishu migration moving, even from relatively calm areas of the country.

"What is making us flee is not violence," said Hasan Ibrahim, a 65-year-old retired soldier who is suffering from tuberculosis and came to Mogadishu from Bakol. "Where I was it was peaceful, but you can't eat peace."

related report

Armed Sudanese Herders Invade Ugandan Park As Drought Grips EAfrica
Kampala (AFP) Jan 20 -- Two thousand heavily armed Sudanese tribesmen have driven 65,000 heads of livestock across the border into a wildlife reserve in Uganda in search of water and pasture for their herds, in a bid to survive the searing drought gripping east Africa, Ugandan officials said Friday.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) said the Toposa herders from southern Sudan had begun arriving in the northeastern Kidepo Valley National Park with their cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys several weeks ago. They were refusing to leave, raising deep concerns about protected animals in the sanctuary, notably cheetahs.

"Their weapons are superior and more modern than those of our game wardens," UWA spokeswoman Lillian Nsubuga told AFP. "We are greatly concerned about our park."

She said wardens estimated that the Toposa had occupied more than 15 square kilometers (six square miles) of the park, where they were grazing 40,000 cows, 10,000 goats, 10,000 sheep and 5,000 donkeys. They were staying put despite an apparent agreement to leave.

"We are in a dilemma. They agreed to leave but they are not moving," Nsubuga said. She said there were fears the livestock would not only degrade the wildlife habitat in the park but could also expose non-domesticated fauna to dangerous diseases.

UWA officials declined to disclose the number of wardens in the park but said they would definitiely be outnumbered by the Topose contingent, now camped there with automatic weapons.

The 1,440-square-kilometer (556-square-mile) Kidepo park is tucked into the corner of Uganda's border with Sudan and Kenya and is known for its stunning beauty, fertile land and rich variety of wildlife.The latter includes cheetahs, rare wild dogs and ostriches.

The arrival of the Toposa in the park coincides with dire warnings that up to 11 million people across east Africa are at risk of famine from the drought, which has also raised fears about the region's famed wildlife.

In neighboring Kenya, wildlife officials have already sounded the alarm about the drought's effect on elephants and hippos. Elephants have been increasingly leaving sanctuaries in search of food, coming into greater conflict with humans and river-dwelling hippos have been dying in large numbers as due to low water levels.

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