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10 burnt alive as toll rises
Story by NATION Team
Publication Date: 1/28/2008
At least 10 people were burnt alive and three others stoned to
death as violence sparked by the outcome of the December General
Election spread to Naivasha Town.
And in Nakuru, one more person was shot dead by attackers in Ponda
Mali in the violence which has taken an ethnic angle. More than 10
people are admitted to the Provincial General Hospital with arrows
lodged in their bodies.
This brings to 82 the number of those killed in Nakuru and its
environs in the past two days. Other sources put the toll in
Nakuru at 100.
Fourteen 14 bodies were Sunday collected from the town and its
suburbs. The Nation counted 68 bodies at the local government
mortuary from the weekend violence.
The 10 arson victims, mostly women and children, were burnt inside
a house at Kabati estate in Naivasha Town. They had locked
themselves in the house to escape the violence. Since dawn,
marauding youths had taken over the town, barricading roads and
terrorising motorists on the main Nairobi-Nakuru highway.
A man was pulled out of an Akamba bus headed for Kisumu and hacked
to death in Naivasha. The youths, who demanded that motorists
identify themselves, said they were avenging killings of their
kinsmen in other parts of Rift Valley.
Uneasy calm
In Uasin Gishu, more houses including a chief’s camp were torched.
An uneasy calm returned to Nakuru Town where 53 people were killed
on Friday and Saturday.
The latest killings come as the Kenya Red Cross warned that the
humanitarian crisis facing the country was running out of control.
Secretary-general Abbas Gullet said the organisation was facing
logistical difficulties in reaching hundreds of needy victims
because they could not access some areas where roads have been
blocked by marauding gangs.
In Nairobi, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan met ODM leader
Raila Odinga and his team and put in place modalities for
negotiations. Mr Annan handed President Kibaki and Mr Odinga the
agenda of the peace mission in the country, the terms of reference
and asked each of them to quickly name three leaders to the
negotiators’ table.
And four Central Kenya MPs accused the Government of failing to
deal firmly with those instigating the violence that has since
claimed up to 1,000 people with thousands displaced while property
worth billions has been destroyed.
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