Kenyans warily ventured out in search of food on Tuesday as violence over the disputed presidential election eased, but did not end, after four days of convulsing the country and leaving nearly 150 dead.
Meanwhile, four top officials of the government-funded electoral body called for an independent inquiry into the country's disputed election results amid international concern, including reservations from the U.S., about the legitimacy of the vote.
The bloodshed is a stunning turn of events in one of the most developed countries in Africa, one with a booming tourism industry and one of the continent's highest growth rates.
In Nairobi's Mathare slum on Tuesday, supporters of fiery opposition leader Raila Odinga, shouting "No Raila, no peace," torched a minibus and attacked travelers who belonged to re-elected President Mwai Kibaki's tribe.
"The car had 14 people in it but they only slashed Kikuyus," said witness Boniface Mwangi, referring to Kenya's largest ethnic group. Five passengers were attacked by the machete-wielding gang, but the others were simply robbed, he said.
Many of the 145 people killed since Friday have died in ethnic clashes between Kenya's two biggest tribes. Odinga is a Luo, a tribe that has frequently accuses Kibaki's Kikuyu group of dominating politics and business at the expense of other tribes. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said that 33,500 Kenyans had been internally displaced and 208 properties destroyed.
In the capital, Nairobi, parents set out to seek food for their children, picking their way past blackened remains of burnt tire barricades. Many families have been unable to find food after looting caused shops to close and many markets were burned.
Some tearful families went to claim bodies from the morgue. Riot police remained on duty in most city centers.
Raymond Ochieng, 29, said he and his two young children had been surviving on porridge since the elections last Thursday, and he had been unable to find transport to his job as a security guard in the center of town.
"Since Kibaki was sworn in, things have changed. Kibaki should resign," he said.
Kibaki was sworn in for another five-year term minutes after results from the election were announced Sunday, despite opposition accusations of fraud and expressions of "grave concern" from international observers.
Four of the country's 22 top electoral commissioners called for an independent inquiry into whether the national electoral commission, or ECK, altered the results of the election.
Jack Tumwa told The Associated Press that he and three colleagues felt, "there are weighty issues raised ... about the conduct of the ECK during the tallying of results."
"The commission cannot investigate itself," he said.
Odinga has vowed to hold a "million-man march" in Nairobi on Thursday and called for "mass action." Kiraithe said any such demonstration would be banned.
The U.S. has warned travelers against all but essential travel to Kenya and Britain has warned against travel in some areas. Both countries have expressed serious reservations about the legitimacy of the way the vote was counted.
The widespread violence and gathering international pressure could pressure Kibaki to find a way to compromise with the opposition.
Most of his cabinet lost their seats in parliament, where Odinga's party took the majority of the seats. The discrepancy between the parliamentary and presidential results, unexplained delays in vote tallying and anomalies that included a 115-percent turnout in one constituency have fueled allegations of rigging.
If Kibaki had lost, he would have been the first sitting president ousted at the ballot box in Kenya. Kibaki's supporters say he has turned Kenya's economy into an east African powerhouse, with an average growth rate of 5 percent.
The 76-year-old won by a landslide in 2002, ending 24 years in power by Daniel arap Moi. But Kibaki's anti-graft campaign has been seen as a failure, and the country still struggles with tribalism and poverty.
Odinga, a flamboyant 62-year-old with a son named Fidel Castro, cast himself as a champion of the poor. His main constituency is the Kibera slum, where some 700,000 people live in breathtaking poverty, but he has been accused of failing to do enough to help them in 15 years as a member of parliament.
___
Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Tom Odula, Malkhadir M. Muhumed and Tom Maliti contributed to this report.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)