Kenyan cops kill two in clashes
2008-01-17 12:18
Nairobi - Kenyan police killed two people in clashes in a Nairobi slum on Thursday, an international aid worker said, on a second straight day of opposition protests against the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.
"Two people were killed ... by the police," the aid worker said, requesting anonymity. "We are in the middle of a crisis," he added.
Police fired teargas and live shots into the air to disperse groups of opposition protesters in Nairobi's Mathare slum and in the western cities of Kisumu and Eldoret, witnesses said.
Paramilitary police were seen in clashes with hundreds of opposition protesters, who were armed with rocks and panga machetes, in Mathare slum.
In slums in the opposition stronghold of Kisumu, riot police fired teargas on youths who had erected roadblocks on major roads, said reports.
The protesters vowed to revenge the killings of two demonstrators in clashes with police in Kisumu the previous day, the first of three days of mass opposition rallies to protest Kibaki's re-election in December 27 polls.
The opposition of Raila Odinga, who claimed he was robbed of the presidency, had accused security forces of using excessive brutality against protesters.
Government spokesperson Alfred Mutua on Thursday blamed the violence on gangs of organised rioters keen to loot and harass the public.