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Police turn machine guns on
protesters as Kenya fractures
19 January 2008
The Scotsman
By Nick Tattersall and Barry Moody
AT LEAST 13 people were killed in Kenya yesterday when police
fired into a Nairobi slum and different ethnic groups clashed
during protests against the disputed re-election of President Mwai
Kibaki.
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 Friday Muslim
prayers, and the southern town of Narok.
Yesterday's deaths were the highest number of confirmed killings
in three days of protests called by opposition leader Raila
Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) against Kibaki's
re-election.
At least 21 people have been killed in the demonstrations, which
were due to end on Friday. About 650 people have been killed since
the disputed 27 December election.
The opposition and human rights organisations accuse the police of
using excessive force and firing indiscriminately at unarmed
protesters. Police say they only fire at rioters and looters.
Reuters journalists counted seven bodies from the Kibera shooting,
including a man with the back of his head blown off and
15-year-old girl, Rosa Otieno. Both were carried to the nearby
Masaba hospital morgue in a pickup truck.
Otieno's aunt, Martha Mtishi, said: "If they can kill a little
girl let them kill us all."
At least 11 wounded people were brought to the hospital. "We need
more doctors because ... we cannot handle an emergency of this
magnitude," said a medical official who gave his name only as Joe.
Outside the hospital a crowd shouted: "Murderers and killers."
In south-west Kenya, officials said five people were killed in
clashes between Mr Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe and tribal Maasai
protesters in Narok town, gateway to the Maasai Mara game reserve.
They were killed with arrows and machetes.
MSF official Ian Van Engelgem said: "We have seen violence over
the last two weeks but today it has really exploded. Young guys –
13 years old– have died, young women, young men, this is
unbelievable ... this is like a massacre."
A statement by envoys from nine countries including Britain, the
Netherlands and Australia, urged Mr Kibaki and Mr 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.
The opposition said earlier yesterday that it would call off
street protests and switch its campaign to small strikes and
boycotts of companies run by Kibaki allies.
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