NAIROBI, Kenya - Thousands of Kenyans displaced in post-election violence are being forced to leave a large refugee camp in the western town of Kitale.

Residents and an international aid worker say Kenyan officials, backed by armed police, are going tent to tent and giving people only a few hours to leave.

Witnesses say one woman who objected was beaten unconscious.

The camp is home to some 9,000 people.

Thousands of houses and businesses were torched and about 600,000 people displaced in violence that followed Kenya's disputed Dec. 27 elections.

Clashes took quickly took an ethnic turn as tribes with long-held land and political grievances began attacking each other. The violence only came to an end after opposition leader Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki worked out a deal to form a unity government last month.

One of the refugees, Catherine Nakhumicha, said a high-ranking district official hit her 23-year-old cousin, Dorcas Nelima, in the face. When she collapsed and began screaming, he seized a log of firewood and beat her for several minutes until she was unconscious.

The official, accompanied by armed police, threatened others with the stick when they came to investigate the screams, she said.

Efforts by the official to revive Nelima were unsuccessful and she was hauled off by police, witnesses said.

Her cousin said Nelima objected to leaving the camp because she was going to be dumped with her two toddlers in the burnt-out ruins of her house, with no shelter in the rainy season.

"The man said, 'I've been telling you to go since last week. You are not supposed to be here,"' said Nakhumicha.

Other witnesses confirmed having witnessed the beating.

Another resident of the camp, Ronald Barasa, said officials would not listen when he explained that he, his pregnant wife and five young children had nowhere to go. They were squatters on a farm and they fear attack if they return, he said. The family left after seeing a neighbour's young son shot dead in front of them, he said.

"The police have removed my tent ... put it in the road," said Barasa, who is 42. "They say we must leave this camp. They say they don't want to see anybody because Kibaki says we must go home," he said.

The head of Doctors Without Borders, Remi Carrier, said many of the camp's inhabitants have nowhere to go, and even those recuperating from surgery are being told they must leave.

The government is anxious for displaced farmers to return home and plant crops during the rainy season, which already has started.

Kenya faces a severe shortfall of the staple corn, just as world prices are skyrocketing, because many farmers' homes and fields were burnt in the violence.

Last week the government launched an operation to help the displaced get home. But many interviewed by The Associated Press said they fear more attacks if they return. Others who left camps swiftly have returned, saying they found inadequate food, shelter and security.

At the Kitale camp, Carrier said many people were considering fleeing to neighbouring Uganda.

"They are saying if we can't be displaced in our own country, we will be refugees in Uganda," he said.

More than 2,400 Kenyan refugees are living at a camp in northwestern Uganda and countless others are staying with friends or relatives there. Given a choice last week to move to a permanent refugee camp or return home, only 323 chose to return to Kenya.

Stephen Ndichu, a father of three, said he would never go back, because a mob had attacked him with machetes and left him for dead.

"I can never go back after what I've experienced. I saw someone skinned alive. There is too much hate," he said. "These politicians have reached agreement before but it didn't last. Why will it last this time?"

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