Xan Rice in Nairobi and Haroon Siddique
Monday December 31, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The death toll from violent clashes in Kenya has today risen to more than 130.
Violence erupted after the ruling president, Mwai Kibaki, declared himself victorious in disputed elections and was sworn back into office almost immediately.
Some of the worst clashed took place in Kisumu, the country's third-largest city and a stronghold of the opposition.
A morgue attendant told the AFP news agency that police had brought in 46 bodies, including three women and two children, overnight. He said more than 20 of the dead had multiple bullet wounds.
Reporters were shown seven other bodies in Kisumu's main hospital before they were transferred to the morgue.
Police, who have imposed a 6am to 6pm curfew in Kisumu, admitted opening fire on looters but would not comment on any deaths.
A police official in the capital, Nairobi, told AFP that 40 people had been killed overnight.
Protesters clashed with hundreds of riot police in the city's slums, and witness told reporters that 15 bodies were today scattered in different parts of the Korogocho area.
Three police told the Associated Press they had orders to shoot to kill. They said the orders had split the force, with many officers sympathising with protesters.
The opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, has dismissed the presidential vote as rigged.
Kibaki, who today vowed to "deal decisively" with voters, was sworn in for a second five-year term after the results were announced last night.
He had trailed in all opinion polls and all but the final count yesterday.
The UK Foreign Office advised Britons against all but essential travel to several parts of Kenya, including Nairobi city centre and some districts of Mombasa.
Ten people died in the Rift Valley provincial capital, Nakuru, and clashes between rival supporters in a village near Kapsabet left four dead, police said.
Two people were killed in Molo, and doctors in Kakamega, western Kenya's regional capital, said six had died from gunshot wounds.
The violence also spread to Mombasa, the eastern port which is Kenya's second largest city and had been previously been relatively free of unrest.
Six members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe were hacked to death with machetes by members of rival tribes who were looting their businesses, police said.
There were also clashes in Kibera - the capital and Kenya's biggest slum - today.
Police tried to stop Odinga's supporters leaving the area, and the protesters attempted to keep officers out. Thousands of young men on the streets chanted: "No Raila, no peace."
Supporters of Odinga burned cars, barricaded the slum and torched the Poi market, in which most stalls are owned by people from the Kikuyu ethnic group, of which Kibaki is a member.
Police used teargas and fired bullets into the air as Odinga supporters tried to leave the area for a planned parallel swearing-in ceremony at which the opposition leader was to adopt the title of "people's president".
The planned rally was later postponed until Thursday, when the opposition leader predicts that 1 million people will attend. "We are calling for mass action, peaceful mass action," he told reporters.
Kibaki was given 4,584,721 votes to the 4,352,993 tally for Odinga.
Odinga, a fiery former political prisoner, rejected the result, claiming rigging by the government and comparing Kibaki to the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
"There is no difference between him and Idi Amin and other military dictators who have seized power through the barrel of the gun," he said.
A joint statement by the British Foreign Office and the Department for International Development cited "real concerns" over irregularities, while international observers refused to declare the election free and fair.
The EU's chief observer, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, said that, in one constituency, his monitors had seen official results for Kibaki that were 25,000 votes lower than the figure subsequently announced by the electoral commission.
"Because of this and other observed irregularities, doubt remains as to the accuracy of the result of the presidential election as announced today," he added.
The US, which cooperates closely with the Kibaki government on anti-terrorism matters, initially congratulated the president on his re-election but today withdrew its acclaim.
"We do have serious concerns, as I know others do, about irregularities in the vote count, and we think it's important that those concerns ... be resolved through constitutional and legal means," the US state department spokesman, Tom Casey, said.
Some of the worst clashed took place in Kisumu, the country's third-largest city and a stronghold of the opposition.
A morgue attendant told the AFP news agency that police had brought in 46 bodies, including three women and two children, overnight. He said more than 20 of the dead had multiple bullet wounds.
Reporters were shown seven other bodies in Kisumu's main hospital before they were transferred to the morgue.
Police, who have imposed a 6am to 6pm curfew in Kisumu, admitted opening fire on looters but would not comment on any deaths.
A police official in the capital, Nairobi, told AFP that 40 people had been killed overnight.
Protesters clashed with hundreds of riot police in the city's slums, and witness told reporters that 15 bodies were today scattered in different parts of the Korogocho area.
Three police told the Associated Press they had orders to shoot to kill. They said the orders had split the force, with many officers sympathising with protesters.
The opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, has dismissed the presidential vote as rigged.
Kibaki, who today vowed to "deal decisively" with voters, was sworn in for a second five-year term after the results were announced last night.
He had trailed in all opinion polls and all but the final count yesterday.
The UK Foreign Office advised Britons against all but essential travel to several parts of Kenya, including Nairobi city centre and some districts of Mombasa.
Ten people died in the Rift Valley provincial capital, Nakuru, and clashes between rival supporters in a village near Kapsabet left four dead, police said.
Two people were killed in Molo, and doctors in Kakamega, western Kenya's regional capital, said six had died from gunshot wounds.
The violence also spread to Mombasa, the eastern port which is Kenya's second largest city and had been previously been relatively free of unrest.
Six members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe were hacked to death with machetes by members of rival tribes who were looting their businesses, police said.
There were also clashes in Kibera - the capital and Kenya's biggest slum - today.
Police tried to stop Odinga's supporters leaving the area, and the protesters attempted to keep officers out. Thousands of young men on the streets chanted: "No Raila, no peace."
Supporters of Odinga burned cars, barricaded the slum and torched the Poi market, in which most stalls are owned by people from the Kikuyu ethnic group, of which Kibaki is a member.
Police used teargas and fired bullets into the air as Odinga supporters tried to leave the area for a planned parallel swearing-in ceremony at which the opposition leader was to adopt the title of "people's president".
The planned rally was later postponed until Thursday, when the opposition leader predicts that 1 million people will attend. "We are calling for mass action, peaceful mass action," he told reporters.
Kibaki was given 4,584,721 votes to the 4,352,993 tally for Odinga.
Odinga, a fiery former political prisoner, rejected the result, claiming rigging by the government and comparing Kibaki to the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
"There is no difference between him and Idi Amin and other military dictators who have seized power through the barrel of the gun," he said.
A joint statement by the British Foreign Office and the Department for International Development cited "real concerns" over irregularities, while international observers refused to declare the election free and fair.
The EU's chief observer, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, said that, in one constituency, his monitors had seen official results for Kibaki that were 25,000 votes lower than the figure subsequently announced by the electoral commission.
"Because of this and other observed irregularities, doubt remains as to the accuracy of the result of the presidential election as announced today," he added.
The US, which cooperates closely with the Kibaki government on anti-terrorism matters, initially congratulated the president on his re-election but today withdrew its acclaim.
"We do have serious concerns, as I know others do, about irregularities in the vote count, and we think it's important that those concerns ... be resolved through constitutional and legal means," the US state department spokesman, Tom Casey, said.
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