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NAIROBI (Reuters) - At least 17,000 illegal migrants from the Horn of Africa leave their countries for South Africa annually, most of them transiting through Kenya, a top U.N. official said on Monday.

Tal Raviv, a regional programme officer at the U.N.'s International Organisation for Migration (IOM), told Reuters that conflict and poverty were forcing Ethiopians and Somalis to undertake risky trips to better places.

"We estimate the number of people, specifically Somalis and Ethiopians, going from south central Somalia and southern Ethiopia towards South Africa is between 17,000 and 20,000 men every year," Raviv told Reuters in an interview.

Violence in Somalia has killed some 21,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and uprooted a further 1.5 million people.

Southern Ethiopia is also mired in a long-running insurgency against the Ethiopian government, for more autonomy for the underdeveloped ethnic Somali Ogaden region.

"The journey is made possible because of limited border controls all the way to South Africa, but also the fact that you can easily get false documents and pay bribes to move from one place to another," she said.

IOM's 2009 report estimates that sneaking Ethiopians and Somalis into South Africa was a $40 million business.

Police in Kenya's north eastern region said they have stepped up measures to curb human smuggling.