NAIROBI, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said Thursday it has began relocation of refugees from the Dadaab refugee camp located in northeast Kenya to Kakuma refugee camp in the northwest.

    The refugee agency said in a statement that the first convoy of ten buses carrying 501 individuals arrived in Kakuma late Wednesday after three days of travel by road with two stopovers, the first at Thika in central Kenya and the second at Kitale in western Kenya on Tuesday.

    "UNHCR plans to move one thousand more refugees to Kakuma in the next two weeks. The next convoy leaves Dadaab on July 8 followed by another one a week later. The transfer of refugees is being facilitated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)," the statement said.

    UNHCR said the movement of refugees from Dadaab to Kakuma is one of the strategies by the agency and the government to decongest Dadaab, a 16-year old camp which is currently hosting nearly twice the population it was designed for.

    The camp currently hosts more than 200,000 refugees mainly from Somalia.

    "While the transfer of these refugees is just a drop in the ocean, we are looking at other ways of decongesting the camps including a possibility of allocating additional land in the Dadaab area," Liz Ahua, UNHCR Representative said.

    UNHCR and the Kenyan government have been concerned about the congestion in Dadaab refugee camp.

    The UN agency said continuing violence in Somalia where the transitional government is battling Islamic insurgents has continued to push out civilians from their homes to neighboring countries.

    "This year alone, nearly 20,000 refugees have sought asylum in Dadaab refugee camp. Many of them are from Mogadishu and parts of South and Central Somalia. Last year, more than 30,000 Somali refugees sought asylum in Kenya," the UNHCR said.

    Kakuma refugee camp, on the other hand, has witnessed a reduction in the number of refugees due to the Sudanese repatriation process.

    The camp currently hosts some 51,000 refugees, most of them from Sudan. This year alone, UNHCR has helped more than 8,000 Sudanese refugees return home.