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Kenya, la guerre des ethnies.

publié le 01/02/2008 par Christophe Calais

Les violences politico-ethniques nées de la contestation de la réélection de M. Kibaki lors de la présidentielle du 27 décembre par son rival Raila Odinga ont fait près de 1.000 morts et entre 250.000 et 300.000 déplacés.

« On December 27, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki won a second term amid allegations that the government stole the vote, sparking deadly riots. Thousands of young men burst out of Kibera, a shantytown of one million people located in Nairobi, waving sticks, smashing shacks, burning tires and hurling stones. Soldiers poured into the streets to fight them off. The opposition rejected the results and vowed to inaugurate its leader, Raila Odinga, as “the people’s president ».

Les violences politico-ethniques nées de la contestation de la réélection de M. Kibaki lors de la présidentielle du 27 décembre par son rival Raila Odinga ont fait près de 1.000 morts et entre 250.000 et 300.000 déplacés.

« On December 27, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki won a second term amid allegations that the government stole the vote, sparking deadly riots. Thousands of young men burst out of Kibera, a shantytown of one million people located in Nairobi, waving sticks, smashing shacks, burning tires and hurling stones. Soldiers poured into the streets to fight them off. The opposition rejected the results and vowed to inaugurate its leader, Raila Odinga, as “the people’s president ».

With Kibaki belonging to Kenya’s largest tribe, the Kikuyu, and Odinga to the second largest, the Luo, the violence has taken on a distinctly ethnic hue, with tit-for-tat killings and targeted arson attacks. In Mathare, a slum located in Nairobi, Luo gangs burned more than 100 Kikuyu homes. In Kibera, Kikuyu families loaded their belongings into cars and fled. Almost all the businesses in the country are closed.

In the west of the country, more than 30 people were burned to death while trying to find shelter from the violence that broke out over the disputed results of the elections. Several hundred people, mainly from President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu ethnic group, are thought to be hiding out in the church. Eldoret has a history of inter-ethnic conflict and has seen some of the worst violence since the victory of incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was announced. The violence is the worst Kenya has witnessed since a failed 1982 coup.

According to the UN, 250,000 Kenyans have been displaced by the post-election violence, and aid groups have warned of a potential health emergency in makeshift camps and in schools, hospitals and churches in the Rift Valley region of western Kenya, as well as in Nairobi’s slums. 30,000 displaced people have arrived in the town of Eldoret alone. According to the police, the death toll from violence in the wake of disputed elections in Kenya has passed 700. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga that failure to negotiate a solution to the deadlock would be disastrous. »


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