Kalenjin priest shelters Kikuyus from own tribe

Eldoret, Kenya: Close to where 30 of their kin burned to death, thousands of Kikuyus are sheltering in another church, protected by a cleric from the same tribe that carried out the worst atrocity of Kenya's crisis.

Catholic Bishop Cornelius Korir is a Kalenjin, the ethnic group whose youths have run riot in the lush Rift Valley, killing scores of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyus after his disputed election win.

Korir has sheltered some 9,000 people fleeing Kalenjin gangs at Eldoret's Sacred Heart Cathedral, a few kilometres from Kiambaa, where a mob on Tuesday locked the doors of a church and set it on fire with Kikuyus cowering inside.

In a measure of the horror of the atrocity, witnesses said a desperate mother pushed her baby out through a window but the mob grabbed the child and threw him back into the flames. "I've tried to tell people there's no difference between us," Korir told Reuters as families sat behind him on bags and mattresses. "I look after all people, regardless of tribe.

"Normally, we co-exist. But then politics comes along and incites people," Korir said, as a family filled a bucket from a tap at the side of a pond.

Mayhem

The United Nations says 250,000 Kenyans have fled from a week of mayhem following the December 27 election. Opposition leader Raila Odinga says the result was rigged and Kibaki, hurriedly sworn in on Sunday, is an illegal president.

At least 300 people died in rioting and ethnic killing after the election as other groups took out their frustration on Kenya's largest tribe, which has produced two of the three presidents.

The worst violence has been in this tribally mixed area, where mobs have attacked Kikuyus with machetes and burned hundreds of homes.