Reuters
Tuesday January 1 2008
(Adds priest, police, details)
By Daniel Wallis and Wangui Kanina
NAIROBI, Jan 1 (Reuters) - A mob torched a
Kenyan church on Tuesday, killing villagers
cowering inside, as the death toll from
ethnic riots triggered by President Mwai
Kibaki's disputed re-election soared to
nearly 200.
The opposition said around 250 people had
died.
In the most grisly incident, about 30 people
died when fire engulfed a church near
Eldoret town where scores of Kibaki's Kikuyu
tribe had taken refuge in fear of their
lives.
The attack revived traumatic memories in
east Africa of the slaughter in churches of
tens of thousands of victims of Rwanda's
1994 genocide, and the mass suicide of
hundreds of Ugandan cult members in a church
fire in 2000.
Police, reporters and a senior security
official said the blaze at the Kenya
Assemblies of God Pentecostal church was
deliberately started by a gang of youths.
Witnesses said charred bodies, including
women and children, were strewn about the
smouldering wreckage.
"This is the first time in history that any
group has attacked a church. We never
expected the savagery to go so far," police
spokesman Eric Kiraithe said.
Reinforcements were being rushed to the area
to arrest all troublemakers "regardless of
their status in society", he said.
"Our officers are exercising a lot of
restraint in maintaining the law. This
restraint will not last for ever."
Residents and a security source said the
victims had sought safety at the church,
about 8 km (5 miles) from Eldoret.
"Some youths came to the church," said a
local reporter from the scene. "They fought
with the boys who were guarding it, but they
were overpowered and the youths set fire to
the church."
The explosion of violence in one of Africa's
most stable democracies and strongest
economies has shocked the world and left
Kenyans aghast as long-simmering tribal
rivalries pitch communities against each
other.
Leading local newspaper, the Daily Nation,
feared Kenya was on "the verge of a complete
melt-down".
Police were out in force in the capital on
New Year's Day, and the streets were
quieter. But details emerged of a rising
death toll and widespread destruction in one
of the country's darkest moments since 1963
independence from Britain.
THOUSANDS FLEE
Washington first congratulated Kibaki --
then switched that line to express "concerns
about irregularities". Britain, the European
Union and others pointedly avoiding
congratulating Kibaki, expressed concern,
urged reconciliation and a probe into
suspected voting irregularities.
"The 2007 general elections have fallen
short of key international and regional
standards for democratic elections," the EU
observer mission said in its formal
assessment.
Western diplomats shuttled between both
sides, trying to start mediation. British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Kibaki
and his opposition rival Raila Odinga.
"The government thinks they can wait this
out, but we're not convinced," one diplomat
in Nairobi told Reuters.
The Eldoret area where the church massacre
took place is multi-ethnic but traditionally
dominated by the Kalenjin tribe.
It suffered ethnic violence in 1992 and 1997
when hundreds of mainly Kikuyus were killed
and thousands more displaced.
A senior security official in Rift Valley
said that as many as 15,000 people were now
sheltering from the latest violence in
churches and police stations in Eldoret.
He blamed the opposition for incitement.
"We have lived together for years, we've
intermarried, we have children, but now
they've asked them to turn against them,"
the security official said. "We don't do
this in Kenya. It is what happens in
Yugoslavia and Sudan."
An Irish Catholic priest in Eldoret, Father
Paul Brennan, told Reuters vigilante gangs
were roaming the streets.
"Houses are being burned. It is too
dangerous to go outside and count the dead,"
he said. "The churches are full. There are
four to five thousand in the main
cathedral."
Most deaths have come from police firing at
protesters, witnesses say, prompting
accusations from rights groups and the
opposition that Kibaki had made Kenya a
"police state".
Police gave a
national death toll of 143 at midday.
Local media gave figures of between 153 and
164 at the same time. And Reuters reporters
around Kenya estimated about 200 dead by
late afternoon, with that number sure to
rise.
Odinga said his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM)
verified 160 fatalities to Monday night, but
with overnight killings added, the total
would likely be about 250 or "slightly
more". (Additional reporting by Nicolo
Gnecchi, Duncan Miriri, Helen
Nyambura-Mwaura, Patrick Muiruri, Bryson
Hull, Florence Muchori, Joseph Sudah, Andrew
Cawthorne; and Guled Mohamed in Kisumu,
Editing by Andrew Cawthorne |
