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Kenya 'facing humanitarian
disaster'
Matthew Weaver and agencies
Wednesday January 2, 2008
The Guardian
Aid agencies today warned of a humanitarian disaster in Kenya amid
claims of "ethnic cleansing" and increased international pressure
on Kenyan leaders to end the post-election violence.
The Kenya Red Cross said up to 100,000 people had so far been
displaced. According to Kenya's Human Rights Commission, more than
300 have been killed.
More than 5,000 people have fled to neighbouring Uganda, and
several hundred people have fled to Tanzania.
Abbas Gullet, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross,
described the situation as "national disaster", adding: "A few
hundred thousand will need assistance for some time."
Meanwhile, Kenya's disputed president, Mwai Kibaki, and his main
rival, the opposition leader Raila Odinga, have come under
mounting diplomatic pressure to reach a compromise to end the
violence.
In a joint statement, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and
his US counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledged the "irregularities"
in the elections but called on both Kibaki and Odinga to negotiate.
The head of the African Union, the Ghanaian president John Kufuor,
is due to meet both leaders tomorrow in a mediation effort.
His mission is being backed by Gordon Brown, who said he would do
everything in his power to promote reconciliation.
"The whole international community has been coming together to try
to bring an end to violence in Kenya and I believe that there is a
responsibility on the part of all opposition and government
leaders in Kenya to call on their supporters to end the violence
that's taking place," Brown said.
Brown has been in phone contact with Odinga and Kibaki, whose
re-election on Sunday is widely seen to have been rigged.
"Millions of people queued up in Kenya to cast their vote. They
deserve a government that brings about stability and prosperity,"
Brown said.
Yesterday Odinga rejected a plea by Brown to negotiate with Kibaki,
saying he would only do so if Kibaki acknowledged that he had lost
the election. He has urged his supporters to take part in a rally
against the result tomorrow.
Kibaki has invited all members of the newly elected parliament,
which is dominated by his opponents, to a meeting to soothe
tensions.
Anger at the poll's result has stirred ethnic tensions. In the
worst incident, up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus were burned alive as they
sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret.
Eyewitness reports of victims being hacked as they fled echoed
those from the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which more than
500,000 people were killed.
Red Cross officials visiting the Moi University hospital, in
Eldoret, reported seeing people who had suffered gunshot and arrow
wounds. "The hospital is overwhelmed with the number of casualties,"
Gullet said.
"One tribe is targeting another one in a fashion that can rightly
be described as ethnic cleansing," an unnamed senior police
official told the AFP news agency.
Kibaki's government has accused Odinga's supporters of the
violence, while Odinga accused the government of "genocide". The
UN's humanitarian information service reported that 30 checkpoints
had been set up between Burnt Forest and Eldoret by vigilantes.
More than 5,000 people have fled to Uganda. "If you are not of the
right ethnic group, it's no go," one Red Cross official was
reported as saying. John Okello, a Nairobi doctor, said clinics
around the city were running short of basic materials such as
white gauze because so many people had been arriving for treatment
suffering from machete wounds.
Accounts of the fire at the church in Eldoret have continued to
emerge. A mob of around 2,000 arrived at the building, George
Karanja, whose family had sought refuge there, said. "The
mattresses that people were sleeping on caught fire. There was a
stampede, and people fell on one another," he said.
The 37-year-old helped rescue at least 10 people from the flames,
but added: "I could not manage to pull out my sister's son. He was
screaming ... he died." First aid workers were stopped by
vigilantes who challenged them to declare their ethnicity.
There are more than 40 tribes in Kenya. The largest, the Kikuyu,
Kibaki's tribe, is accused of using its dominance of politics and
business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe,
a smaller but still major tribe that claims it has been
marginalised. While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the
tribal spectrum, those responsible for the violence see politics
in strictly ethnic terms.
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