Hundreds of people from rival tribes confronted one another on a main road of Kenya's flower capital yesterday, hefting machetes, clubs and rocks and retreating only when a handful of police between them fired live bullets into the air.
Trouble also broke out in another western town, Kisumu, where similarly armed mobs set some houses ablaze. Gangs set buses ablaze at the main downtown bus station, and one driver was burned alive in his minibus, according to witness Lillian Ocho.
A month of ethnic clashes roiling Kenya have claimed the lives of 800 people. The fighting began after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's Dec. 27 re-election, which his main rival Raila Odinga -- and international and local observers -- say was rigged. Much of the violence has pitted other ethnic groups against Kibaki's Kikuyu people, who have long dominated business and politics in the country. About 255,000 people have been forced from their homes.
The bloodshed has transformed this once-stable African country, pitting longtime neighbors against one another and turning tourist towns into no-go zones.
In Kisumu yesterday, angry young men blocked roads out of the town with burning tires and rocks.
"Kikuyus must go! No Raila, no peace!" they yelled.
In Kisumu, some members of Odinga's Luo tribe took out their rage on Kikuyus, including the bus driver who was burned to death.
"The road is covered in blood. It's chaos. Luos are hunting Kikuyus for revenge," said Baraka Karama, a journalist for state broadcaster Kenya Television.
Police opened fire. A morgue attendant said one man whose body was brought in had been shot in the back of the head. A school cleaner was also hit and killed by a stray bullet fired by a policeman, said Charles Odhiambo, a teacher at Lion's High School.
Violence spread over the weekend to Naivasha, 90km northwest of Nairobi, a previously quiet tourist town with a stunning freshwater lake. It is also the center of Kenya's horticultural industry and a key flower-exporting area.
"We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and sisters who have been killed, and nothing will stop us," said Anthony Mwangi, hefting a club in Naivasha on Sunday. "For every one Kikuyu killed, we shall avenge their killing with three."
At least 22 people were killed in the town over the weekend, said district commissioner Katee Mwanza, as Kikuyus set ablaze the homes of rivals from Odinga's Luo tribe.
Nineteen of them were Luos a gang of Kikuyus chased through a slum and trapped in a shanty that they set on fire, said police commander Grace Kakai. The others were hacked to death with machetes, a local reporter told the press.
Outnumbered, police did not intervene. Gunshots rang out into the evening.
Yesterday morning, the two sides, numbering up to 1,000, faced off around the entrance to the Lake Naivasha Country Club. When they advanced, a few police officers holding a line between them fired live bullets into the air. They retreated, then regrouped.
On Sunday, looters used iron bars to smash the windows of shops belonging to non-Kikuyu businesspeople, and made off with TV sets, groceries and clothing.
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