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Kenya protests
toll rises to 32
DAILY NEWS
NAIROBI: Kenyan police shot dead 13 protesters yesterday, bringing
to 32 the number of people killed since a string of opposition
rallies started two days earlier.
The killings comes in the wake of former UN secretary-general Kofi
Annan's scheduled visit to the region on Tuesday to broker peace
between the warring groups.
The worst bloodshed was in the huge Kibera slum, an opposition
stronghold, where at least seven people were killed and a dozen
were wounded by police automatic gunfire. The French medical
charity MSF called it a "massacre".
Police also opened fire and lobbed tear gas in the port of Mombasa,
where one person was killed in protests after prayers, and the
southern town of Narok.
The deaths were the worst toll from three days of protests called
by opposition leader Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
At least 21 people have been killed in the demonstrations, which
were due to end yesterday.
Protesters built a burning barricade in the slum, and boys hiding
in shacks and firing stones from slingshots played a cat-and-mouse
game with police.
"They were trying to uproot railway lines. The police came to stop
them and started shooting. They started howling and running away,"
said James Muga, an unemployed 45-year-old as repeated bursts of
automatic gunfire rang out.
In southwest Kenya, officials said five people were killed in
clashes between Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe and Maasai anti-government
protesters in Narok town, gateway to the Maasai Mara game reserve.
They were killed with arrows and machetes.
The opposition said police fatally shot two protesters in Mombasa,
Kenya's Indian Ocean port. Officials could confirm only one death
there.
A statement by envoys from nine countries including Britain, the
Netherlands and Australia, urged Kibaki and Odinga to meet for
direct talks without delay or preconditions, and called on Kenya's
security forces to show restraint.
"We have seen clear and disturbing footage of the use of lethal
force on unarmed demonstrators," it said.
Protests also resumed yesterday in the western opposition
stronghold of Kisumu, where more than 300 youths set fire to a
fuel tanker to block the road.
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