Close to 130 people were killed in Nairobi and in western Kenya overnight during clashes that erupted following President Mwai Kibaki’s re-election, police said on Monday.
The deaths brought the confirmed toll from poll-related violence since Thursday’s ballot to 149, amid fears that suspicions of vote-rigging will see Kenya face several more days of instability.
Forty-eight were killed in the capital, Nairobi and 53 in Kisumu, the country’s third city and a bastion of defeated opposition challenger Raila Odinga, police said.
”We collected 36 bodies by 5am [local time] in the morning from all over the city [Nairobi], mainly in major slums. They were shot during confrontations with the police. The majority are young men,” a senior police official said.
Four other bodies were discovered in the capital’s Mathare slum.
”All these bodies are lying in the mortuary,” the official added.
Another eight were killed in clashes in the Korogocho slum later on Monday, police said.
Seven were killed in the Rift Valley provincial capital, Nakuru, and further clashes between rival supporters in a village near Kapsabet also left four dead overnight, police said.
Later on Monday, three more people were killed in Nakuru and two in the nearby town of Molo.
Doctors in Kakamega, western Kenya’s regional capital, said six died from gunshot wounds.
”Six more have died of the gunshot wounds they suffered last night. The injured are being treated,” said doctor, who requested to remain unnamed. An Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent saw the six bodies.
The violence also spread to the eastern port of Mombasa, which is Kenya’s second largest city and had been relatively spared by electoral unrest so far.
Six members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe were hacked to death with machetes by members from rival tribes, who were looting their businesses, police and an AFP correspondent on the scene.
Kibaki was declared the winner on Sunday but Odinga rejected the results, accusing the government of rigging the counting process, and called for peaceful mass action.
The violence is the worst Kenya has seen in its cities since the failed 1982 coup against authoritarian former president Daniel arap Moi.
Meanwhile, on Monday vowed to ”deal decisively” with nationwide riots that have wracked the country since he was announced re-elected.
In a New Year statement, Kibaki appealed for ”national healing” and reconciliation after his defeated opposition challenger accused him of tampering with the tallying process.
”My government will also deal decisively with those who breach the peace by intensifying security across the country,” Kibaki said in the statement. — AFP
