By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, April 24 (Reuters) - The U.N. food agency said on Tuesday it had struck a deal to get better access to hundreds of thousands of desperate Somalis who have fled Mogadishu to escape fighting.

The humanitarian situation has continued to worsen in Somalia, where fighting between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and Islamist gunmen is hampering aid agencies in delivering vital food, clean water and shelter.

Senior Somali officials and U.N. aid agencies met in the southern Somali town of Baidoa on Monday after U.N. resident coordinator Eric Laroche warned last week of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

"The discussions were very positive. We hope and think that the problem has been solved," WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told a news briefing in Geneva. A government statement confirming this was still expected, she said.

A WFP convoy was turned back earlier this month while en route from Mogadishu to Afgooye, some 30 km (20 miles) to the west -- where agencies now say from 40,000 to 50,000 of the displaced are gathered -- after authorities said the food had to be inspected in the capital.

"We are going to try to go to Afgooye. What needs to be done now is the instruction has to be given to the checkpoints. That might take a while," Berthiaume said.

Shelling and artillery fire shook northern Mogadishu on Tuesday, the seventh day of fighting in which local officials say some 300 people have been killed. The International Committee of the Red Cross said 300 people were treated for wounds last weekend alone.

Up to half a million people have fled Mogadishu since fighting erupted in February. Thousands are sleeping in the open.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was "extremely concerned about the low response (which) aid agencies are able to provide largely due to the insecurity situation".

It said there was a "lack of sanitation everywhere".

The World Health Organisation said it had sent health and water and sanitation experts to Nairobi, but they could not go into Somalia until security improved.

The WHO was sending enough cholera kits for up to 2,000 people to Somalia. Some 12,429 cases of acute watery diarrhoea -- including some confirmed cases of cholera -- and 414 deaths have been reported since last December, according to the agency.

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