Arrow-pierced Bodies and Death By Stoning: at Least Seven Dead in Latest Kenyan Clash

At least seven people have been killed in renewed clashes in Nakuru, in Kenya's volatile Rift Valley, witnesses said today, despite mediation efforts this week.

One battle in the west of Nakuru, Kenya's fourth largest city, left a dozen people lying in the street, some with deep cuts to their heads, others with arrows in their chests and backs, one local reporter said.

A second reporter said she saw two people killed - a man carrying beans to the market, who was stoned to death at the main bus station, and a man stabbed near a bar that had been looted.

"The dead bodies and injuries are coming in. I cannot give you a figure now," the medical superintendent at Nakuru hospital, Dr George Mugenya, told the Associated Press.

Elsewhere in the Rift Valley, half the town of Total Station was burned down overnight and at least two people were killed and 50 wounded by clubs and machetes, the secretary-general of the Kenya Red Cross Society, Abbas Gullet, told reporters.
"The spiral effects of counterattacks and reprisals is getting out of hand in the Rift Valley," said Gullet.

Since last month's disputed election, ethnic Kikuyu supporters of the president, Mwai Kibaki, have been fighting ethnic Luo and Kalenjin groups that back the opposition leader, Raila Odinga.

The latest killings came despite a meeting between government and opposition leaders yesterday.

"We can no longer stand back and watch as our brothers are killed in Eldoret while the Luos and Kalenjins have fun in Nakuru," bus conductor Dennis Kariuki told Reuters, referring to past killings of Kikuyus around Eldoret town, also in the Rift Valley.

"We have vowed that for every Kikuyu killed in Eldoret, we shall kill two Kalenjins who are living in Nakuru town."

The Rift Valley has been the scene of some of the worst of the violence following the disputed election.

In total, as many as 700 people have died and 250,000 have been displaced.

The displacement of people to makeshift camps has led to a rise in child rapes, the United Nations children's fund said today.

Overcrowding and lack of security in the camps is making women and girls vulnerable to sexual assault, a Unicef spokeswoman told reporters.

"Cases of rape are increasing," said Veronique Taveau, and will eventually show up in the country's HIV statistics as victims are not getting treatment within the recommended 72 hours to prevent infection.

Preliminary reports collected by three UN agencies in Kenya indicate that girls and women in the informal camps are forced to "trade sex for biscuits, protection, transportation, or are raped while trying to get to a latrine during the night", Unicef said.

The government and opposition have blamed each other for the ensuing violence but Human Rights Watch, based in New York, has accused opposition party officials and local elders of organising violence in the Rift Valley.

The rights group warned that the attacks, which have been targeting mostly Kikuyu and Kisii people in and around Eldoret, would continue until the government and opposition act to stop the violence.

"Opposition leaders are right to challenge Kenya's rigged presidential poll, but they can't use it as an excuse for targeting ethnic groups," said Georgette Gagnon, acting Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"We have evidence that [the opposition Orange Democratic Movement] politicians and local leaders actively fomented some post-election violence, and the authorities should investigate and make sure it stops now."

Odinga, meanwhile, has ruled out taking the new post of prime minister in Kibaki's government as a solution to the crisis.

"I never said I was considering taking up a position of prime minister under Kibaki," Odinga told Reuters.

Odinga said the only three acceptable options would be Kibaki's resignation, a re-run of the vote, or power sharing, leading to constitutional reform then a new election.

Yesterday the 63-year-old leader of the ODM met Kibaki for the first time in the crisis - thanks to the mediation of the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan.

But Odinga said he was offended by Kibaki's comments afterwards that he was Kenya's "duly-elected" president.

"Those remarks were unfortunate, calling himself duly-elected and sworn-in president. That is the bone of contention. We want negotiations with integrity," he said.

Asked if he would, however, meet Kibaki again, Odinga replied: "Yes, sure. But I would ask him to desist from making those kind of embarrassing remarks, which will definitely undermine the process of mediation."