Viewpoint: Can Kenya avoid election bloodshed?
Kenya village massacres raise fears of election violence
Kenyan MP charged over violence
At least 30 people have been killed in fresh clashes between rival farming communities in the Tana River district on the Kenyan coast, police say.
The latest outbreak of violence is reported to be a revenge attack by Pokomo farmers on Orma homesteads.
More than 100 villagers died in August and September as rivalry flared between the two communities.
Many of the victims then were women and children and security forces were deployed to end the violence.
Police say that in the latest attack houses in Kipao village have been burnt and there have been casualties on both sides.
The Red Cross say they know of at least 30 dead and 30 others seriously wounded, including a one-year-old child. More than 40 houses were set ablaze.
Search teams are said to be combing the area around the village, looking for further victims.
Police reinforcements and emergency officials are being flown to the scene, while the wounded are being taken to the port city of Mombasa for treatment.
In August, the two communities clashed in a dispute over Orma farmers grazing their cattle on land that the Pokomo say is theirs.
Settled Pokomo farmers and semi-nomadic Orma pastoralists have clashed intermittently for years over access to grazing, farmland and water in the coastal region.
According to police, tensions between the two communities have risen in recent days.
Police, who have been camping out in the remote region, have been trying to disarm the two groups.
But the UN says the latest deaths may be related to the redrawing of political boundaries ahead of next year's general election.
An MP from the region has been arrested for inciting violence and the BBC's Bashkash Jugsodaay says it is likely politics was behind the most recent clashes.
The last election in 2007 was marred by ethnic violence. More than 1,300 people were killed, mainly in the Rift Valley in western Kenya.
没有评论:
发表评论