There has been another weekend of turmoil in Kenya, even as international mediation efforts continue to try to end the violence.
It's been exactly a month since a disputed presidential vote unleashed an explosion of frustration and unrest in Kenya. The disturbances soon degenerated into bedlam and bloodshed between ethnic groups.
An estimated 800 people have been killed. The latest theater of conflict is in Kenya's volatile Rift Valley, where mobs of youths armed with stones charged at police — who fired into the air to disperse them.
Houses in two towns in Kenya went up in flames. The attackers used everything from clubs and machetes to bows and arrows in attacking residents from other tribes.
And there were revenge raids and reprisals. Some people were locked in their houses, which were then set on fire. Others were clubbed or hacked to death.
The targets this time were the Rift Valley capital, Nakuru, and nearby Naivasha. Both towns are tourist havens. The Rift Valley is home to a mix of tribes — the Luos who support the opposition leader Raila Odinga, and an allied ethnic group, the Kalenjin. It is also home to large communities of Kikuyu, who belong to the president's tribe.
The main stadium in Nakuru was packed with people seeking refuge after being driven from their homes yet again. The arena was completely full, mostly with women and very young children. With only the belongings they managed to escape with, they were left to sit in a field.
Some in the stadium tried to cook, but others complained that they didn't even have the wherewithal to be able to prepare food.
Many of the displaced are demanding that President Mwai Kibaki and his political rival, Raila Odinga, sit down for talks meant to end the mayhem. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who's trying to broker peace in the conflict, toured the Rift Valley on Saturday.
"We saw gross and systematic abuse of human rights, of fellow citizens. And it is essential that the facts be established and those responsible be held to account. ... We cannot accept that periodically, every five years or so, this sort of incident takes place and no one is held to account. Impunity cannot be allowed to stand," Annan said.
Meanwhile, some of the humanitarian workers trying to help tens of thousands of displaced people said they are worried about their own safety in Naivasha, which exploded on Sunday.
"This morning, I traveled on the road to Naivasha because we are setting up a camp in Naivasha, for the last two days for people coming into Naivasha. And my staff were, this morning, quite frightened to say they would go out because there were roadblocks everywhere in Naivasha town and that whole highway," Abbas Gullet, head of the Kenya Red Cross, said Sunday.
The police have claimed that they have restored order in the Rift Valley province. Provincial Commissioner Hassan Noor Hassan insisted they had the situation under control, as he boarded an army helicopter to fly over the region.
"The situation is tense in the town here in Nakuru. Things are tense but I'm sure we'll be able to overcome it," Hassan said. "Of course, people have been burning houses and going for each others' throat on the basis of tribe and these kinds of things.
"This is part of the post-election violence, and we are not taking it lightly. ... We have been able to contain the situation in many parts of the province."
Yet Monday morning, that confidence was shattered. About 1,000 people from opposing tribes faced off in Naivasha, in the very Rift Valley the commissioner flew over. It's hard to imagine that the police would be able to keep them apart.
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