Night-time curfew in Kenya town

Nairobi: The Kenyan authorities have imposed a night-time curfew on the western city of Nakuru, where tribal clashes have left 10 people dead over the past 24 hours, police said on Friday.

"We have imposed a 7pm to 7am curfew to help manage the situation in Nakuru," said Rift Valley Police commander Everette Wasige.

In another western town, Total Station, half the town was burned down and at least five people were killed in the ethnic clashes, the Kenya Red Cross Society said on Friday.

Some 50 people have been wounded by clubs and machetes and up to 3,000 have been left homeless in fighting that erupted on Thursday in Total Station, said Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet.

Aid workers said the latest violence pits people from President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group against the Kalenjin, who support opposition leader Raila Odinga. Sixty per cent of Total Station's buildings had been razed in fires, Gullet said. The town is in the Rift Valley, which has seen some of the worst of the post-election violence.

Since the December 27 vote, at least 685 people have been killed nationwide in riots and fighting and some 255,000 people have been forced from their homes. "The spiral effects of counter-attacks and reprisals is getting out of hand in the Rift Valley," said Gullet. He showed film of people fleeing for safety to a mosque and police station with columns of flames rising in the background.