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UN rights investigators to probe
Kenya violence
Tue 5 Feb 2008, 16:01 GMT
GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators are
heading to Kenya to conduct a three-week probe into violations
committed in post-election bloodshed, a U.N. spokesman said on
Tuesday.
The team of seven, due to arrive in Nairobi on Wednesday, will
report to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour
who ordered the fact-finding inquiry.
The U.N. investigators will interview survivors of ethnic violence,
relatives of victims, authorities as well as opposition
representatives and non-governmental organisations, spokesman Yvon
Edoumou told a news briefing in Geneva.
The death toll since the disputed December 27 re-election of
President Mwai Kibaki has risen to 1,000, the Kenyan Red Cross
said on Tuesday.
Most of the deaths have come from cycles of ethnic killings,
police clashes with protesters and looting. Some 300,000 Kenyans
have been displaced by the crisis, aid agencies say.
Under the mediation of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
the government and opposition led by Raila Odinga have agreed on
principles to stem the violence and help the uprooted.
In recent years, the U.N. human rights office has carried out
special inquiries to establish the facts after massacres in places
including Andizhan, Uzbekistan, Ivory Coast, East Timor, Lebanon
and Sudan's Darfur region.
Arbour would be expected to present the investigators' report on
Kenya to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is holding its next
session in Geneva from March 3-28.
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