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/ 19 July 2005

Rebels deny UN destruction of DRC camps

Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday denied reports from the United Nations that UN peacekeepers destroyed six of their bases in the eastern DRC last week. ”We are still controlling our positions,” said a spokesperson for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

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/ 19 July 2005

At least 22 dead in Kenyan bus crash

At least 22 people were killed and 21 injured when a bus and tractor-trailer collided near Kenya’s southern port of Mombasa, police and hospital officials said on Tuesday. The vehicles, which were travelling in the same direction along the main road from Nairobi to Mombasa, crashed at about 4am local time near the Wangala trading post.

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/ 14 July 2005

New clan violence rocks Kenya

New interclan violence wracked parts of remote northern Kenya overnight after a brutal village massacre and reprisal attack killed at least 76 people this week, officials and residents of the region said on Thursday. Members of the rival Borana and Gabra clans continued to clash following Tuesday’s attack, they said.

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/ 13 July 2005

‘Most of them died in their school uniforms’

Sixty-six people, at least 22 of them children, were killed in a brutal raid on a remote village in northeastern Kenya in what is believed to be the country’s worst single episode of inter-clan violence to date. ”The situation is very sad on the ground, everybody is mourning the dead,” said Bonaya Godana, a former Kenyan foreign minister.

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/ 17 June 2005

Kenya evicts thousands living in forest land

Kenya is evicting thousands of families who illegally occupy a vast swathe of forest in the country’s Rift Valley region, government spokesperson Alfred Mutua said on Friday. ”These forest areas are water catchment areas and the waters from these areas not only feed our country but [also] … trickle through the Maasai Mara to our neighbours”.

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/ 8 June 2005

UN to review Africa’s ‘silent tsunami’

The United Nations is looking into how best to resolve the problem of internally displaced persons worldwide, a senior UN official has said, describing internal displacement as a neglected humanitarian issue. More attention will be paid to eight countries with acute IDP problems, which include Nepal, Somalia and Sudan.

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/ 1 June 2005

Cattle raiders kill nine in Kenya

Ethiopian and Sudanese tribal fighters attacked and killed nine people in separate cattle raids in Kenya, officials said on Tuesday. Toposa fighters from southern Sudan gunned down five members of one family, including two schoolchildren, during a raid on Monday in the Turkana district of north-western Kenya.

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/ 30 May 2005

Kenyan government cracks down on smokers

The Kenyan government is drafting a Bill that will outlaw smoking or holding lit tobacco products in public places, the country’s top physician said on Monday, a day ahead of World No Tobacco day. Among the provisions of the law are an increase tax on tobacco by 15% and penalties for those found smoking in public.

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/ 26 May 2005

Kenyan prosecutor sacked in murder row

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has fired a senior prosecutor involved in dropping murder charges against a prominent British aristocrat accused of killing a Maasai game warden, officials said on Thursday. He ”had to go because he acted unprofessionally when handling the case”, a senior government official said.

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/ 18 May 2005

Court drops charges against Kenyan first lady

A magistrate dropped assault charges against Kenyan First Lady Lucy Kibaki after the attorney general said neither police nor prosecutors have had time to investigate whether she had slapped a television news cameraman on World Press Freedom Day. ”I’m so disappointed,” the cameraman said after hearing the ruling.

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/ 18 May 2005

Justice and reconciliation still elude Kenya

A recent statement by Kenyan Minister of Justice Kiraitu Murungi that it is ”no longer necessary” for the country to establish a commission to investigate atrocities committed under previous governments has been greeted with both outrage and delight. The promise to set up such a body, was one of the key pledges made during the current head of state’s campaign for office.