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December 2, 2008 5:12:39 AM CST

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Pol's Death Sparks Kenya Battles

Posted Jan 29, 08 3:00 AM CST in World 

(Newser) – Army helicopters fired on crowds to protect Kenyans fleeing bloodshed and mobs torched homes and people as violence escalated today in the wake of the killing of an opposition politician, the BBC reports. At least four people were killed in a Nairobi slum after a member of opposition leader Raila Odinga's party was apparently killed in his home nearby in the ethnic violence ripping apart the nation. 

Helicopters fired on Kikuyus attacking Luos trying to flee the town of Naivasha, after Luos stopped and torched cars of Kikuyus fleeing Kisumu. Thousands of people have fled Rift Valley towns where more than 100 people have been killed since Friday in violence first set off by Kenya's controversial presidential elections last month. President Mwai Kibaki has appealed for calm, but Odinga warned that the country was slipping into anarchy.

Sources: BBC, Reuters, Associated Press

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Kenyan men from the Luo tribe armed with machetes and rocks enforce a makeshift roadblock, searching passing vehicles for Kikuyus trying to flee the town in order to kill them, on the main road to the...   (Associated Press)
Kikuyu men hold up crude weapons as they taunt feeling people across the road, Monday, Jan. 28, 2008 during ethnic clashes in Naivasha, Kenya. Hundreds of people from rival tribes confronted one another...   (Associated Press)
Kenyan men from the Luo tribe enforce a makeshift roadblock, searching passing vehicles for Kikuyus trying to flee the town in order to kill them, on the main road to the Ugandan border near the airport...   (Associated Press)
Kenyan men from the Luo tribe armed with machetes and rocks enforce a makeshift roadblock, searching passing vehicles for Kikuyus trying to flee the town in order to kill them, on the main road to the...   (Associated Press)
Kikuyu men point crude weapons at people fleeing to a safe area, Monday, Jan. 28, 2008 during ethnic clashes in Naivasha, Kenya. Hundreds of people from rival tribes confronted one another on a main road...   (Associated Press)
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Kenya • Mwai Kibaki • Raila Odinga • ethnic violence • Kikuyu


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