Round-up of articles from IRIN

KENYA: Fears rise over plight of displaced

Thousands of Kenyans displaced by post-election violence in the west of the country were taking refuge in police stations and church grounds with little or no access to humanitarian assistance four days into the worst unrest seen in the country since a 1982 failed coup.

Many have no homes to return to, because they were set on fire in the wave of violence that greeted the Election Commission of Kenya's announcement on 30 December that incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won the presidential poll three days earlier. Much of the violence was committed by civilians and generally targetted members of Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group and others that support him politically.
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KENYA: Whispering in Swahili - good neighbours in the Rift Valley

Two families found themselves caught up in post election violence in Moi's Bridge, an area between Eldoret and Kitale in western Kenya's strife-hit Rift Valley Province. They told IRIN their stories.

The area is predominantly Kalenjin (an ethnic grouping including the Nandi, Marakwet, Pokot and others). But a significant Kikuyu population also lives there. According to the Kenya Red Cross Society and other sources, the violence in Rift Valley Province mainly pits members of the Kalenjin community against the Kikuyu, the tribe of controversially re-elected President Mwai Kibaki.

On the night of 29 December - the day before the election results were announced and promptly rejected by the opposition, the first attacks on Kikuyu houses and homesteads around Moi's Bridge began, according to residents of both ethnicities contacted by phone from Nairobi.
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"The trouble broke out immediately after the results of the presidential polls were announced; everything changed within 20 minutes," he said.

"Within minutes, my two shops had been burnt down and they took everything - even the doors and windows. I lost property worth 600,000 shillings [about US$9,000] - including the clothes I was wearing."
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"The country has been riddled with insecurity over the last few days and there are many areas we cannot access," Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet told reporters in Nairobi on 1 January after conducting an assessment by helicopter to western parts of the country.

Video footage shot during this mission showed smoke billowing from homes and farms, crowds of displaced civilians seeking sanctuary in churches and police stations, and usually busy main arteries empty of traffic and dotted with roadblocks manned by gangs.
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