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Fighting Scars Smallest Kenyans

Kids witness parents' death in ethnic clashes

By Caroline Zimmerman,  Newser User

Posted Feb 3, 2008 3:43 PM CST
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(Newser) – The violence in Kenya is separating droves of children from their parents—sometimes forever, the BBC reports. One Nairobi orphanage is currently hosting 60 displaced children; some wait for their parents to find them, but most know their mothers and fathers are already dead. "It's been a traumatizing experience for them," says one Red Cross activist.

The children at SOS Children's Home run for cover when they hear gunshots from a nearby slum. After witnessing the ethnic violence in the country up close, it's become a reflex. "My mother was attacked by men with machetes. I didn't see it—when I arrived, there was only blood on the floor," said one 13-year-old orphan.

Internally displaced Kenyan children look into the camera as they seek refuge at a police station in Thika, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, Friday Feb. 1. 2008. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon arrived in Nairobi on Friday to hold talks to help resolve the month long post election...
Internally displaced Kenyan children look into the camera as they seek refuge at a police station in Thika, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, Friday Feb. 1. 2008. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon...   (Associated Press)
Internally displaced children line up to receive food distributed by an aid organization at the Nairobi show ground, where some 1,000 people are seeking shelter, in Nairobi, Kenya, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008. Kenya's rival sides agreed to take immediate action to end month long violence over the disputed presidential...
Internally displaced children line up to receive food distributed by an aid organization at the Nairobi show ground, where some 1,000 people are seeking shelter, in Nairobi, Kenya, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008....   (Associated Press)
Internally displaced children from the Luo tribe, displaced by post election violence, line up to receive food from aid organizations at the Limuru police station in Limuru, near Nairobi, Kenya, Thursday Jan. 31, 2008. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Internally displaced children from the Luo tribe, displaced by post election violence, line up to receive food from aid organizations at the Limuru police station in Limuru, near Nairobi, Kenya, Thursday...   (Associated Press)
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Violence in Kenya poses serious health threat
AFP

Kenya health workers
The East African

 
Kenya • children • orphan • ethnic violence • orphanage

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