Forty aid agencies warned of an impending catastrophe in Somalia this month, highlighting the urgent needs of the 20,000 people who flee fighting in the country's capital Mogadishu every month. So what becomes of the people forced to leave their homes in a country UN. officials call the "worst humanitarian crisis in Africa"? And what kind of reception greets them when they get out?

Coverage of this issue varies depending on where reporters are based. The U.S. press is sympathetic to the plight of Somalia's internally displaced and refugee populations, and some reporters express concern about America's role in the continuation of the civil war.

The New York Times, for example, has put together a slideshow of photographs entitled "Somalia on the brink" focusing on internally displaced people. The images show make-shift camps, families forced to hide in abandoned government buildings, and masses of people waiting for food rations.

In an accompanying article for the paper, Jeffrey Gettleman writes that insurgency violence is rising and the Somali government now teeters on collapse. This raises serious questions about the way Ethiopian troops and American intelligence services installed the government by force, he writes, though he stops short of asking what they should do now to halt Somalia's disintegration.

For Abukar Albadri, a Somali journalist writing in the Los Angeles Times, the United Nations and international aid agencies could do more to help people fleeing the violence. He tells of leaving Somalia and struggling to find refuge in Djibouti, Somaliland and Uganda, before finally paying for a visa and settling in Kenya. He says there isn't enough assistance for people in his position who want work and don't want to be dependent on handouts from aid agencies.

Many, however, don't have the resources to cross into Kenya, and instead risk the dangerous boat crossing to get to Yemen. Last year 27,000 people reached Yemen, but 1,400 died or went missing on the way, according to the U.N. agency for refugees, UNHCR.

Radio Netherlands reports on the despair that prevails in large desert camps in Yemen. "I can't see any future for me. And the same goes for everyone here. We don't want to stay here. We want to go back to Somalia, but it's not possible. And we can't go to another country either," one Somali refugee told the reporter.

But in Yemen itself, media coverage is divided between expressions of sympathy for the refugees and concern about the domestic impact of their influx. There is also strong criticism of the international community for not doing more.

A commentator for the Yemen Observer expresses concern at the numbers killed trying to cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen and asks: "(Are the Somali people) so poor that no one cares, allowing them to be mistreated?"

The international community has failed to act to help ordinary Somalis because it has been pursuing strategic interest elsewhere, the commentator writes, and that has left countries like Yemen to pick up the pieces.

"Yemen has enough economic problems as it is and cannot deal with the flow of more refugees from Somalia and the rest of the countries of the troubled African Horn," the article goes on.

The Kenyan media voices similar concerns, with commentators worried about the effect refugees from Somalia will have on the country's stability.

Writing on the Kenya Today website, Yukabeth Chepkonga says: "(The) influx of refugees has compounded Kenya's security concerns, because many of them are streaming into the country unfiltered and unchecked for possible terrorist leanings."

The civilian death toll in Somalia is shocking, Chepkonga writes, but Kenyans must be mindful of the threat of terrorism spilling over the Somali border.

With concern like this growing in neighbouring countries, one can only hope the international community commits to doing more to help Somalia's growing displaced population.

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