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Kenya death toll hits 693
Agence France-Presse
Sunday, January 13, 2008 (Nairobi)
The death toll from Kenyan post-election violence soared to 693,
officials said on Sunday, amid pressure on rival leaders to
acknowledge election irregularities that spurred the violence and
drop all preconditions for talks.
''We have recovered 89 more bodies from the bushes in the last
five days in the Rift Valley and Western provinces,'' a top police
commander said.
An official from the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), which last
week warned that several bodies may have been devoured by animals
in the bush, confirmed the figure of recovered bodies.
In fresh acts of violence two people were killed in the Rift
Valley's districts of Rongai and two others in Molo, a police
commander added.
The latest deaths bring to 693 the number of victims of
post-election violence as compiled by AFP from medical sources,
police officials and mortuary attendants across the country.
The newly recovered bodies prompted the KRCS to increase its
official toll from 486 to 575 people dead as a result of the
violence following the contested December 27 election, according
to its statements.
Nearly 260,000 people have been displaced - mainly in the Rift
Valley region - after violence flared on December 30 when
President Mwai Kibaki was declared re-elected and immediately
sworn into a second term of office despite protests of
irregularities in the vote count by the opposition and
international observers.
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