More than 26,000 refugees of Somali origin have been left stranded in Kenya after US president Donald Trump ordered a ban on them.
Trump issued a ban on immigrants coming from Muslim countries including Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Yemen.
According to United Nations refugee agency spokeswoman Yvonne Ndege, half of the 26,000 refugees that have been hit by the ban in Kenya already have approval for US resettlement while the rest await interview by the American State Department.
"They are feeling shocked, depressed, despairing and heartbroken," she said from a Nairobi transit centre hosting about 140 refugees who were due to fly to America in the last few days.
Children, some seriously sick, comprise half of this number.
"There are so many vulnerable people here in the transit centre, orphans... women and children who have experienced abuse, domestic abuse, sexual violence," she said.
Ndege added that many were left crying as they were to join their family members in the US and have already sold their possessions prior to the journey.
"They don't understand why America won't take them after all these years of scrutiny," she said.
"They have one-way tickets out of here."
Despite criticism and pleas to have Trump reconsider the ban, he has remained adamant, saying that visitors from the Muslim dominated countries must be restricted to curb terrorism in American boarders.