Nairobi, Wed. Jan 2nd. (Guardian) - Aid agencies today warned of a humanitarian disaster in Kenya amid claims of "ethnic cleansing" and increased international pressure on Kenyan leaders to end the post-election violence. The Kenya Red Cross said up to 100,000 people had so far been displaced. According to Kenya's Human Rights Commission, more than 300 have been killed. More than 5,000 people have fled to neighbouring Uganda, and several hundred people have fled to Tanzania. Abbas Gullet, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross, described the situation as "national disaster", adding: "A few hundred thousand will need assistance for some time."Meanwhile, Kenya's disputed president, Mwai Kibaki, and his main rival, the opposition leader Raila Odinga, have come under mounting diplomatic pressure to reach a compromise to end the violence. In a joint statement, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and his US counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledged the "irregularities" in the elections but called on both Kibaki and Odinga to negotiate. The head of the African Union, the Ghanaian president John Kufuor, is due to meet both leaders tomorrow in a mediation effort. His mission is being backed by Gordon Brown, who said he would do everything in his power to promote reconciliation. "The whole international community has been coming together to try to bring an end to violence in Kenya and I believe that there is a responsibility on the part of all opposition and government leaders in Kenya to call on their supporters to end the violence that's taking place," Brown said.
Brown has been in phone contact with Odinga and Kibaki, whose re-election on Sunday is widely seen to have been rigged. "Millions of people queued up in Kenya to cast their vote. They deserve a government that brings about stability and prosperity," Brown said. Yesterday Odinga rejected a plea by Brown to negotiate with Kibaki, saying he would only do so if Kibaki acknowledged that he had lost the election. He has urged his supporters to take part in a rally against the result tomorrow. Kibaki has invited all members of the newly elected parliament, which is dominated by his opponents, to a meeting to soothe tensions. Anger at the poll's result has stirred ethnic tensions. In the worst incident, up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus were burned alive as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret.
Eyewitness reports of victims being hacked as they fled echoed those from the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which more than 500,000 people were killed. Red Cross officials visiting the Moi University hospital, in Eldoret, reported seeing people who had suffered gunshot and arrow wounds. "The hospital is overwhelmed with the number of casualties," Gullet said. "One tribe is targeting another one in a fashion that can rightly be described as ethnic cleansing," an unnamed senior police official told the AFP news agency. Kibaki's government has accused Odinga's supporters of the violence, while Odinga accused the government of "genocide". The UN's humanitarian information service reported that 30 checkpoints had been set up between Burnt Forest and Eldoret by vigilantes.
More than 5,000 people have fled to Uganda. "If you are not of the right ethnic group, it's no go," one Red Cross official was reported as saying. John Okello, a Nairobi doctor, said clinics around the city were running short of basic materials such as white gauze because so many people had been arriving for treatment suffering from machete wounds. Accounts of the fire at the church in Eldoret have continued to emerge. A mob of around 2,000 arrived at the building, George Karanja, whose family had sought refuge there, said. "The mattresses that people were sleeping on caught fire. There was a stampede, and people fell on one another," he said. The 37-year-old helped rescue at least 10 people from the flames, but added: "I could not manage to pull out my sister's son. He was screaming ... he died." First aid workers were stopped by vigilantes who challenged them to declare their ethnicity.
There are more than 40 tribes in Kenya. The largest, the Kikuyu, Kibaki's tribe, is accused of using its dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that claims it has been marginalised. While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the tribal spectrum, those responsible for the violence see politics in strictly ethnic terms.
by Matthew Weaver and agencies
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