Kenya's opposition accused police of killing seven people yesterday during a second day of clashes with demonstrators protesting against President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election.
In the capital Nairobi, and the western towns of Kisumu and Eldoret, police fired teargas and bullets during rallies called by opposition leader Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), but banned by police. More protests are planned for today.
Mr Odinga, who accuses Mr Kibaki of stealing victory in the December 27 ballot, said police shot dead seven people in the capital.
"Police are shooting innocent civilians at will... the government has turned this country into a killing field of innocents," he told reporters.
Police had no immediate comment. ODM member of Parliament Elizabeth Ongoro Masha said her driver was among those killed by officers who had surrounded part of the Mathare slum overnight.
"They were targeting people perceived as being group leaders," she said.
Witnesses saw three wounded men carried into a hospital in another Nairobi slum, Kibera. One died from gunshot wounds to the neck, doctors said.
In the opposition stronghold of Kisumu, a witness said police shot dead two men and a woman. Relatives of a 10-year-old boy shot on Wednesday said he had died in hospital. Three other people were killed there on Wednesday, including a youth seen shot and then kicked by a policeman in footage on local KTN television.
Police said they were attacked first, but there was growing criticism from human rights organisations and others of police tactics.
Kenya's rapid plunge into crisis has tarnished its democratic credentials, horrified world powers, scared off tourists and hurt one of Africa's most promising economies.
In three weeks since the vote, more than 600 people have died in killings and clashes between police and protesters.
A quarter of a million people, mostly from Mr Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, have fled their homes in turmoil set off by a vote that foreign observers, including the Commonwealth, say was deeply flawed.
In Kibera, part of Mr Odinga's Nairobi constituency, a Reuters cameraman said people had hijacked a train and stolen its cargo. Earlier, a policeman in Mathare who asked not to be identified said some slum dwellers were shooting at officers.
In the Rift valley town of Eldoret, police chasing protesters fired teargas into the emergency wing of the main hospital, striking a security guard, a hospital official said.
The European Parliament recommended budgetary aid be frozen until the crisis is solved, although unlike many of its African neighbours, Kenya is not aid-dependent and gets less than five per cent of its budget from it.
Western countries have urged Kenya to allow peaceful protests but the government says tempers are too high and rallies would degenerate into looting and rioting.
The US State Department blamed both sides for the latest violence and said the deaths of more civilians was "terrible".
"More than anything else they need to come together for the Kenyan people and for Kenya's future," a US spokesman said.
Former UN head Kofi Annan, due to lead talks to end the standoff, is recovering from a bout of flu that delayed his trip, the UN said, but gave no date for his arrival.
With few options left after Mr Kibaki entrenched his administration and talks brokered by African leaders failed, the ODM has taken its fight to the streets.
The government accuses Mr Odinga of orchestrating ethnic killings and favouring violence over legal challenges. The ODM says the courts are biased and would take years to rule.
"They are just waking up at 10 o'clock, eating eggs and sausages, giving interviews and planning how to disrupt people's lives," government spokesman Alfred Mutua told reporters.