More than 300 people have died in four days of rioting. In the worst incident, up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus - mostly women and children - were burned alive in a church near the town of Eldoret, in western Kenya. Thousands have also fled their homes. Some fear Kenya is facing its worst crisis since independence in 1963. However, inter-ethnic clashes are common in Kenya, especially at election time. In 1992 some 1,500 people died in fighting in the Rift Valley region. Five years later, another 200 were killed, mainly in fighting in the country's second city, Mombasa.
Is the violence along tribal lines?
Much of the resentment has been directed towards the Kikuyus, Kenya's largest ethnic group, which makes up 22% of the population. President Mwai Kibaki, who was announced as the election winner and hastily sworn in on Sunday evening, is a Kikuyu. The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, is a Luo, from western Kenya near Lake Victoria on the border with Uganda. Odinga's Nairobi constituency, Langata, includes one of Africa's largest slums where he enjoys strong Luo support. In the presidential vote, Kibaki received very few votes in the Luo areas, while Odinga, received only a very small percentage of the Kikuyu vote.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/02/kenya