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No Let-Up in Kenya Violence As
Political Crisis Continues, UN Reports
UN News Service (New York)
21 January 2008
Deadly violence continues across parts of Kenya and the police
presence remains heavy, the United Nations reports today, as the
country reels from the crisis sparked by last month's disputed
election.
The bloodshed continued unabated over the weekend with 10 people
hacked to death in ethnic violence, mainly in Kericho, Nakuru,
Nairobi and Mombasa, and tens of houses torched, according to UN
security officials on the ground.
They said the worst incident appeared to be in Kericho, where six
people were killed and 50 houses burned last Saturday night. In
Nairobi, at least three people were killed in the Huruma slums and
13 admitted to hospital with machete cuts on Sunday.
Violence first erupted in the East African nation a few weeks ago,
after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over
opposition leader Raila Odinga in the December polls. Nearly 600
people have been killed and some 255,000 displaced in the ensuing
crisis.
According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), approximately 1,000
displaced persons arrive in Nakuru each day from violence-affected
areas in the Northern Rift Valley.
Also in Nakuru, UNICEF says 18 of 134 schools remain closed, and
some 240 teachers have failed to report to work. In Molo, the
agency reports that 60 per cent of the region's 151,000 children
are absent from school due to insecurity and displacement - nearly
400 schools in the area were burned, looted or vandalized.
UNICEF is providing tents and recreation kits for distribution by
the Kenya Red Cross to enable temporary schools to accommodate
displaced children around the country.
Kenyan authorities now estimate that 116,000 people are displaced
in the Northern Rift Valley region, and they are working with the
UN World Food Programme (WFP) to devise a distribution plan to
provide up to one month's food rations to the displaced.
WFP reports that people in Nairobi's Kibera slum continue to need
food assistance and UN aid workers have planned another round of
food distribution for some 2,000 households later this week.
The agency estimates that its food has already reached more than a
quarter of a million people. The food has been borrowed from WFP's
existing stocks for its operations in Kenya, including an
emergency operation targeting some 682,000 people still suffering
from the effects of the 2005 drought and more than one million
children who normally receive school meals from WFP.
"It is vital that stocks borrowed from these operations can be
replaced and it is vital that more funds arrive to allow WFP to
continue deliver food to the people affected by post-election
violence and also people in need who are served by our normal
operations," WFP's Penny Ferguson told reporters in Nairobi.
For its part, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) distributed nearly 300
family kits to the displaced in Jamhuri Park in Nairobi through
the Kenya Red Cross, and has delivered another 400 kits for
further distribution. Trucks carrying 340 family kits and 10,000
sanitary packs arrived in Eldoret on Saturday, and UNHCR plans to
start distributing them to the displaced through the Kenya Red
Cross.
Meanwhile, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is expected to
arrive tomorrow in Nairobi where he will be joined by the former
Mozambican first lady Graca Machel and Tanzania's Benjamin Mkapa
to begin their mission as the African Union (AU) Panel of Eminent
Personalities to facilitate negotiations for a political solution
to the disputed presidential election results.
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