Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Thousands of frightened Chadians took advantage of a lull in fighting yesterday to flee N'Djamena when rebels withdrew from the capital after two days of heavy clashes with government troops. Officials, however, warned that battles probably were not over, and rebel leaders vowed to attack again. "Rebels still have a capability of fighting," said Capt. Christophe Prazuck, spokesman for the French Ministry of Defense, which has 1,900 troops deployed in the central African country and has evacuated nearly 1,000 foreigners.

ELDORET, Kenya -- Angry mobs clashed with police yesterday in several Kenyan cities as news spread about the killing of a second opposition lawmaker in this Rift Valley city. The newly elected member of parliament, David Kimutai Too, was shot to death in a car with a female companion in what police described as a "crime of passion" arising from a "love triangle." The suspected killer, who worked as a policeman in Eldoret, was said by authorities to be having an affair with the same woman, who also was shot and killed.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Mugabe Were, a freshman member of parliament, could have been one of the keys to unlocking Kenya's crisis, but he never got the chance. He was a moderate opposition politician, a self-made businessman who grew up in a slum, and he bridged the ethnic divide. His wife is from another ethnic group, and as Kenya slid into chaos this past month after a disputed election, he shuttled between different communities and tried to organize a peace march. Yesterday morning, as he pulled up to the gate of his home, Were was dragged out of his car and shot to death.

Iftin Iftin dodges through the crowded halls of Patterson High School. In low-slung khaki pants and black-and-white sneakers, a backpack thrown over his shoulder, the slight senior blends in as students pass by him, slapping his hand. "Iftin, wassup?" says one student. The 21-year-old flashes a smile, nodding his head in recognition. "What's up?" the Somali Bantu refugee responds, his strong African accent belying his appearance. A small black pin reading "Amini" is on his powder-blue shirt.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Ethnically driven violence intensified in Kenya yesterday, and police officials said at least 19 people, including 11 children, were burned to death in a house by a mob. The country seems to be becoming increasingly unhinged, with even the Kenyan military, deployed for the first time, unable to stop the wave of revenge killings. More than 100 people have been killed in the past four days, many of them shot with arrows, burned or hacked with machetes. It is some of the worst fighting since a disputed election in December ignited long-simmering tensions that have so far claimed at least 750 lives.

KERINGET, Kenya -- At first the violence seemed as spontaneous as it was shocking, with machete-wielding mobs hacking people to death and burning women and children alive in a country that was celebrated as one of Africa's most stable. But a closer look at what has unfolded in the past three weeks, since a deeply flawed election plunged Kenya into chaos, shows that some of the bloodletting that has left more than 650 people dead may have been premeditated and organized. Leaflets calling for ethnic killings mysteriously appeared before the voting.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Clashes between police and protesters in several cities resulted in as many as 12 deaths yesterday, bringing the toll to nearly two dozen in three days of "mass actions," witnesses and officials said. The deadliest skirmishes occurred in the Nairobi slum of Kibera, where angry youths tore up railway lines that run through the restive district, connecting the Kenyan coastline to Uganda. Protesters re-dubbed the broken transport line the "Odinga Highway," in honor of opposition leader Raila Odinga.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The American government took its toughest position yet on Kenya's disputed elections yesterday, calling on Kenya's president and opposition leaders to meet immediately and saying that the election was so flawed that it was impossible to know who really won. "The United States cannot conduct business as usual in Kenya," said the statement, written by Jendayi E. Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Kenya, an American ally, receives hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid each year.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- As the head of the African Union met with Kenya's political rivals here yesterday to try to get them talking, opposition supporters waited tensely on the streets for news and warned of more violence if President Mwai Kibaki stays in power. John Kufuor, the AU chairman and Ghana's president, met with Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, trying to inch them toward a political resolution to end tribal violence that followed their disputed presidential contest. There was no official comment on the substance of the talks, nor any sign that the two rivals would meet face to face.

NAKURU, Kenya -- Kenya's privileged tribe is on the run. During the past few days, tens of thousands of Kikuyus, the tribe of Kenya's president, have packed into heavily guarded buses to flee the western part of the country because of ethnic violence. Yesterday, endless convoys of buses - some with their windshields smashed by rocks - crawled across a landscape of scorched homes and empty farms. It is nothing short of a mass exodus. The tribe that has dominated business and politics in Kenya since independence in 1963 is being chased off its land by machete-wielding mobs made up of members of other tribes furious about the Dec. 27 election, which Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, won under dubious circumstances.