693 killed in Kenya violences
Nairobi, 2008 Jan 13, IRIB
The death toll from Kenyan post-election violence soared to 693, officials said Sunday, amid pressure on rival leaders to acknowledge election irregularities that spurred the violence.
"We have recovered 89 more bodies from the bushes in the last five days in the Rift Valley and Western provinces," a top police commander said.
An official from the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), which last week warned that several bodies may have been devoured by animals in the bush, confirmed the figure of recovered bodies.
In fresh acts of violence two people were killed in the Rift Valley's districts of Rongai and two others in Molo, a police commander added.
The latest deaths bring to 693 the number of victims of post-election violence as compiled by AFP from medical sources, police officials and mortuary attendants across the country.
The newly recovered bodies prompted the KRCS to increase its official toll from 486 to 575 people dead as a result of the violence following the contested December 27 election, according to its statements.
Nearly 260,000 people have been displaced -- mainly in the Rift Valley region -- after violence flared on December 30 when President Mwai Kibaki was declared re-elected and immediately sworn in to a second term of office despite protests of irregularities in the vote count by the opposition and international observers.
The nationwide rioting rapidly degenerated into bloody tribal vendettas, raising fears that more violence could lead to events spilling out of control.
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