Death toll mounts as ethnic violence flares in Kenya

Naivasha, Kenya: Gangs armed with machetes and bows and arrows burned and hacked to death members of a rival tribe in western Kenya on Sunday, as the death toll from the latest explosion of violence over disputed presidential elections rose to at least 69. Houses were blazing in the centre of Naivasha, a tourist gateway.

About 55 bodies were counted yesterday at the morgue in Nakuru, the provincial capital where ethnic clashes erupted Thursday night and continued until Saturday. Bodies were still arriving there yesterday, said a morgue attendant who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

A local newspaper reporter saw another five bodies on Sunday in two slums on the outskirts of Nakuru.

The fighting spread yesterday to Naivasha, 90km northwest of Nairobi, where at least nine people were killed, according to the count of a local reporter.

Clashes

The latest deaths raise the toll to nearly 800 killed in ethnic violence and clashes with police since President Mwai Kibaki was declared winner of December 27 balloting that international and local observers say was rigged. Some 255,000 people have been forced from their homes. In Naivasha, groups from Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe set ablaze the homes of Luo rivals in the centre of the town. Police, apparently overwhelmed, did not intervene.