Kenya ethnic clashes continue

2008-01-28 08:38

Naivasha - Hundreds of people from rival tribes confronted each other on a main road of Kenya's flower capital on Monday, hefting machetes, clubs and rocks and retreating only after a handful of police between them fired live bullets into the air.

It was unclear whether the officers would be able to keep them apart.

Ethnic clashes were continuing to convulse western Kenya, as gangs fought with crude weapons and set homes ablaze in this tourist gateway, pushing the death toll from a month of violence over the country's flawed presidential election to nearly 800.

The bloodshed - with Sunday marking exactly one month since the December 27 vote - had transformed this once-stable African country, pitting longtime neighbours against each other and turning towns, where tourists used to gather for luxury holidays into no-go zones.

Scale of violence 'worse'

It also complicated the task of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the latest international mediator trying to bring together President Mwai Kibaki and his chief rival.

While ethnic clashes had accompanied past Kenyan elections, the scale of the violence this year had been far worse. It had mainly pitted other ethnic groups, which supported the opposition because they felt marginalised, against Kibaki's Kikuyu people.

"We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and sisters who had been killed, and nothing will stop us," said Anthony Mwangi, hefting a club in Naivasha on Sunday. "For every one Kikuyu killed, we shall avenge their killing with three."

Kikuyus were the main victims in the initial eruption of violence, with hundreds killed and more than half of those driven from their homes belonging to Kibaki's tribe. Now, however, it appears the Kikuyus are looking for revenge.

Nine people killed

Some 55 bodies were counted on Sunday at the morgue in Nakuru, the provincial capital of Kenya's fertile Rift Valley, where ethnic clashes erupted late on Thursday, said a morgue attendant who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Bodies were still arriving on Sunday, although the running battles had largely cooled off. A local newspaper reporter saw another five bodies on Sunday in two slums on the outskirts of Nakuru.

The fighting spread on Sunday to Naivasha, 90km northwest of Nairobi, a previously quiet tourist town with a stunning freshwater lake. At least nine people were killed here by gangs with machetes and clubs, according to the count of a local reporter.

Five others burned to death in their homes, said Willy Lugusa, a police official.

The latest deaths brought the toll to nearly 800 killed in ethnic violence and clashes with police since Kibaki was sworn in for a second five-year term. About 255 000 people had been forced from their homes. International and local observers said the vote tally was rigged.

- AP