KENYA: Smoke rising over Naivasha as rival protesters face off in Kenya post-election violence

Record ID: 361102

  • Title: KENYA: Smoke rising over Naivasha as rival protesters face off in Kenya post-election violence
  • Date: 29th January 2008
  • Summary: POLICE BEATING UP YOUNG MEN VARIOUS POLICE TALKING TO LARGE GROUP OF YOUNG MEN
  • Embargoed: 13th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAEZFORIDJ6MR3WOVM18UCAID34
  • Story Text: Police teargas mourners in the home of the slain MP after mourners built burning barricades outside the residence. In the nearby Kibera slum at least two people are killed overnight.
    Gunmen killed a Kenyan opposition politician at his home in the early hours of Tuesday (January 29) and ethnic violence spread across the nation as a month-long political crisis threatened to spiral out of control.
    Newly elected Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) member of parliament Melitus Were was shot twice in the head as he reached the gate of his house shortly after midnight.
    ODM spokesman Tony Gachoka said, without giving evidence, that Were may have been targeted by political foes.
    Government officials did not immediately comment.
    Hours after Were's death, rival ethnic gangs began fighting in Nairobi's Kibera slum, not far from where he was shot.
    A Reuters witness saw two corpses, with cuts on the head and neck, and another man badly hurt after being forcibly circumcised.
    Unrest also simmered across the volatile Rift Valley, with mobs ransacking homes, burning belongings and threatening people trying to flee Naivasha town, north of the capital.
    Around 850 people have been killed since the December vote, which the opposition says was rigged.
    Police are carrying displaced people in trucks from the Rift Valley town of Naivasha, as the mobs continue to rampage.
    Trucks ferrying people who are fleeing are being taken to farms and police stations and other safe areas in the town.
    One truck had to be saved by police firing teargas after a mob attacked and tried to get at people inside. A Reuters reporter nearby heard several bursts of gunfire.
    Many people have to fight to get seats on the trucks.
    About 250,000 people have been displaced by the violence.
    Official results showed Kibaki narrowly won the Dec. 27 vote, but Odinga says victory was stolen from him by vote-rigging. International observers said the poll was flawed and diplomats are pushing for a power-sharing arrangement.
    Commentators urged Kibaki and Odinga to call for calm.
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