DIARY: DELIVERING RELIEF IN KENYA!

A major aid effort is now under way to bring food to people displaced by post-election violence in Kenya. Marcus Prior from the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) describes the scenes encountered by his food convoy as they journey from downtown Nairobi to Eldoret and then further north to Noigam.

DAY 1: INTO THE RIFT VALLEY

The UN and Kenyan Red Cross are leading the relief effort. It was surreal. Most WFP missions to conflict areas pick up their military escorts outside army barracks or on the road heading out of town. This was Nairobi, and two Land Rover-loads of Kenyan army personnel were waiting for us at the ABC Plaza shopping centre - home to Nairobi's trendiest bar, my favourite coffee shop and the best deli in town.

Like most people in Kenya, I couldn't quite believe this was happening. Our drive north over the Rift Valley escarpment and through some of the most stunning scenery on Earth was uneventful. Until we reached a place called Burnt Forest, north of Nakuru that was - well - burnt.

In one town, the largest building was torched and gutted, the marketplace razed to the ground, while in a nearby field worshippers held their hands to the sky praying for deliverance from the events that had destroyed their lives. In Tarakwa, a town straddling the main road south of Eldoret, two churchyards were crammed with people seeking refuge.

The signs of exodus were everywhere - belongings piled high on the roadside as people waited for any transport they could find to take them out - anywhere, just out. Then came the roadblocks, most often simply stones and telephone poles strewn across the road, manned by vigilantes carrying machetes and bows and arrows. The only guns we saw were carried by the army, busy clearing the road in an attempt to reopen the vital supply line through the country and on to Uganda, the Great Lakes region and Sudan.

The charred remains of several looted trucks did not go unnoticed by our logistics officer - moving food by road was not going to be easy. The final stretch into Eldoret was spookily calm. On our way in we passed the cathedral - again, every square inch taken by a family seeking safety. No shelter, little food, little water. And it is cold at night here.

DAY 2: ON FROM ELDORET

Heading north, there are scenes of devastation by the roadside. The WFP normally only distributes a very small amount of food to schoolchildren and people affected by HIV/Aids in this region, but at least it means we have facilities in place, including a large warehouse with significant stocks of food.

Before November we did not even stock food here, so it was a stroke of good fortune. But our supplies are inadequate. There is no cooking oil and no high-energy biscuits - both are on trucks en route to Eldoret which have been stranded due to the clashes which erupted after the election result was declared. We need to get them moving again.

At the warehouse, our loaders are stacking bags of peas and corn-soya milk onto Kenyan Red Cross trucks. It is they who will be doing the distributions. It is an encouraging sign - food is already moving to those in need. As we leave the warehouse, we have to negotiate our way past a huge convoy of some 20 buses and 50 cars, all heading south out of Eldoret. Driven by fear and intimidation, the exodus continues.

This little part of Kenya is being torn apart. A little later we head north out of town and at the city limits we are met with another scene of devastation - shops, businesses and houses burnt to the ground. It has been selective - charred shells stand next to other buildings that remain untouched. The army are trying to clear the roads and reopen vital supply lines.

At Soy, we find about a thousand people at the police post. They say they fled with nothing, that in many cases this was the condition for being allowed to leave their homes alive before the fires were set. Outside, a bus is being loaded. It will leave early in the morning and head south. In other settlements where we are told people are living in the open we find nobody.

They have either gone home as the situation calms (which local officials repeatedly tell us it is) or headed out of the region entirely. On our way back we bump into two trucks carrying our high-energy biscuits on the outskirts of Eldoret. The even better news is that the vegetable oil is now confirmed due tomorrow morning. We are getting there.

DAY 3: NORTH TO NOIGAM

Again we head north out of town, this time towards a primary school compound in the town of Noigam. When we get there, we find thousands of people milling around the classroom blocks. Many thousands have been displaced in the region. Most have been forced to sleep out in the open for several days now. They complain they are not eating properly, that they have no clean water and that their children are starting to fall ill. Forty percent of the displaced are estimated to be young children.

It is tense, too. Under a tree near the entrance lies a body of a woman, the mother of two boys, who was shot and killed in an early morning attack by a marauding group of men, looking to loot the cattle the people had managed to escape here with.

Shortly after we arrive there is a commotion - screaming and a flurry of feet - before the police intervene and a youth with a severely bloodied face is brought into the nearby police station. He is probably lucky to have escaped. The crowd believe him to have been involved in the raid. Later, another young man is targeted in the same way and again the police have to step in. Trust has dissolved into fear.

Attention turns to the arrival of seven trucks loaded with food. With remarkable efficiency under the circumstances, a local churchman organises groups of young men to help with the discharging. Until now, Kenya has needed only a small amount of food aid. Within minutes, maize, peas, high-energy biscuits and corn-soya milk are flying from the back of the trucks and piling high on the dusty ground.

Grace Omariba is 26 and has two young boys. She is educated and eloquent. "There is no food left - it has all been burnt," she told me. "There are no blankets, no pots and pans. I am dressed the way I came - I have nothing else. We are sleeping in the open and there are mosquitoes at night. We need our country to have peace."

As we head off again, we see the slopes of Mt Elgon burning in the distance. "Those are granaries burning," a locally based colleague tells me. Finding enough to eat will be a battle for many in the months ahead.
BBC NEWS REPORT.