BY TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, January 1st 2008, 10:29 PM
Getty
Woman's wracked by grief outside church that sheltered refugees
from election violence.
Fifty Kenyans taking sanctuary from postelection violence were
killed Tuesday when a mob set fire to a church as tribal violence
spiraled out of control.
The atrocity stunned even the police, who have been trying to rein
in four days of rioting and ethnic clashes from the capital,
Nairobi, to coastal resorts.
"This is the first time in history that any group has attacked a
church," said police spokesman Eric Kiraithe. "We never expected
the savagery to go so far."
The election of President Mwai Kibaki, who was sworn in Sunday,
brought festering rivalries to the surface with tragic results.
As the death toll neared 300 and Kenyans fled their homes by the
thousands, Kibaki called for rival party leaders to meet and
present a united front.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claims Kibaki's election was
rigged, swiftly rejected the offer.
"If he announces that he was not elected, then I will talk to
him," Odinga said.
Kibaki is a member of the dominant Kikuyu tribe, and Odinga
belongs to the smaller Luo tribe.
Gangs from both groups were attacking one another with machetes
yesterday. Homes were looted, cars were torched, and witnesses
said police fired on protesters.
"They have taken our beds, our blankets, even spoons," said Anne
Njoki, a 28-year-old Kikuyu camped out at a military base.
More than 15,000 others took shelter in churches, but vigilante
gangs were undeterred.
At the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church in Eldoret, one
gang of youths set the fire after guards were overpowered.
"I could not look at the scene twice," said a Kenyan journalist
who witnessed the carnage.
The bloody unrest threatened to shut down one of east Africa's
most stable countries.
Although Kenya has been beset by ethnic feuding in the past,
officials were taken aback by the latest violence.
"We don't do this in Kenya," said one security official. "It is
what happens in Yugoslavia and Sudan."
http://0rz.tw/f73sp
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