Tribal gangs clash in Kenyan town, 27 killed

Kenyan police battled yesterday to stop clashes between tribal gangs wielding machetes, spears and bows and arrows that have killed at least 27 people in the western town of Nakuru in three days of bloodshed.

Burnt bodies piled up and gunshots rang out in the Rift Valley provincial capital, which had previously been spared the chaos that has killed some 700 people across Kenya since the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki December 27 polls.

What began as a political stand-off has evolved into a settling of scores between rival tribes in the east African nation, once one of the continent's most promising economies, whose peaceful image has been shattered by the bloodshed.

"There is nothing we can do. All those who are fanning the violence are staying comfortably in their luxury homes while we burn," said Nakuru resident Urunga Maina, who rushed his nephew to hospital after he was hacked by a machete-wielding mob.

"We are being used as sacrificial lambs," Maina told Reuters. "What matters is that the politicians take what they want. They don't care about the wananchi (ordinary people)."

The fighting has prompted the first army deployment since Kenya's crisis erupted and undermined hopes of a solution after Kibaki met his rival Raila Odinga on Thursday in their first talks since the troubles began. Odinga says the vote was rigged.

The latest clashes pitted members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe against Luos and Kalenjins who backed Odinga - and looked to have largely caught the security forces in Nakuru unawares.

"It may have been triggered by the electoral result, but it has evolved into something else where there is gross and systematic abuse of the rights of citizens," said former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is leading a mediation team.

More than 100 wounded were admitted at a Nakuru hospital, including one man with an arrow lodged in his head. A doctor there said he saw nine bodies, all with deep machete wounds.

At the Nakuru morgue, relatives wept as police unloaded another 16 charred corpses from a truck. Two more victims were stoned to death by gangs at the bus station before police fired shots to disperse people from the scene.

The authorities had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew to try to contain pitched battles between tribal gangs, but hostile youths armed with crude weapons set up several roadblocks around town.

Near the small Rift Valley town of Kipkelion, a gang of youths attacked a monastery sheltering more than 600 refugees.

"After mass I saw a big group of youths storming into the monastery compound armed with bows and arrows and stones and pangas (machetes)," Fr Dominic Nkoyoyo told Reuters.

Police chased off the attackers without any injuries.

Two men were also hacked to death overnight in Naivasha, another Rift Valley town, police said.

Benson Waliaula, 36, a security guard at a bank in Nakuru, said he saw Kibaki supporters chase down one man and kill him.