KENYA: Authorities struggle to avert more bloodshed in Kenya's Rift Valley after ethnic clashes leave dozens dead

Record ID: 361267

  • Title: KENYA: Authorities struggle to avert more bloodshed in Kenya's Rift Valley after ethnic clashes leave dozens dead
  • Date: 28th January 2008
  • Summary: (W3) NAIVASHA, KENYA (JANUARY 28, 2008) (REUTERS) POLICE TRYING TO STOP KIKUYU PROTESTERS FROM GOING TOWARDS LUO PROTESTERS VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS CHANTING VARIOUS OF PROTESTER CARRYING STONES POLICE RESTRAINING LUO PROTESTERS KIKUYU PROTESTERS POINTING AT TKENYAHE OTHER GROUP VARIOUS OF STONE THROWING GUNSHOTS AS POLICE TRY TO CONTROL THE SITUATION MORE OF POLICE TRYING TO
  • Embargoed: 12th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVACL464YNR9BGB5BYQCNNNJZZX9
  • Story Text: Authorities struggle to avert more bloodshed in Kenya's Rift Valley after ethnic clashes leave dozens dead.
    Protests erupted in western Kenya and machete-wielding mobs faced off in the Rift Valley on Monday (January 28) after scores died in ethnic violence, complicating mediation efforts by former U.N. boss Kofi Annan.
    Gangs from rival communities have been fighting each other with machetes, clubs, and bows and arrows in Nakuru and nearby Naivasha, both famous for their lakes teeming with wildlife.
    Violence since Kenya's Dec. 27 election has now gathered a momentum of its own -- linked to decades-old land disputes, wealth inequities and past British colonial rule -- and taken the death toll to around 800 people.
    The dispute over President Mwai Kibaki's re-election -- which the opposition says was rigged -- has plunged Kenya into a spiral of violence, battering its image as an east African trade and tourism hub and one of the continent's more stable nations.
    Attacks in the immediate aftermath of Kibaki's win were mainly against his Kikuyu tribe -- the largest and richest in Kenya -- but members of that group, including the outlawed Mungiki gang, have begun fighting back, Kenyans say.
    Police created a buffer zone between rival Kikuyu and Luo protesters in the town of Naivasha, firing shots in the air to stop stone throwing.
    Residents said two protesters were shot dead.
    In the pro-opposition western town of Kisumu on Monday, children who had gone to school earlier in the morning were hurriedly picked up by their guardians as smoke rose from the city.
    In the normally peaceful Rift Valley town of Nakuru, a mortuary worker said on Monday that 64 corpses were lying in the morgue, all victims of the past four days of ethnic fighting.
    The number of 250,000 refugees, from one of Kenya's darkest episodes since independence in 1963, looked sure to swell as thousands more fled the latest clashes.
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