Riot police are preparing for bloody confrontation with tens of thousands of protesters today after supporters of Raila Odinga said that they would take their battle against President Kibaki to the centre of Nairobi.

Mr Odinga has called a “people’s march” in the hope of galvanising opposition to Mr Kibaki, who claimed an unexpected narrow victory in last week’s disputed election.

The march has been declared illegal, and last night paramilitary police were deployed in the centre of the capital. Reinforcements will take up positions today when thousands of Mr Odinga’s supporters are expected to spill out of Kibera, a slum in the poverty-stricken outskirts of Nairobi, to march on Independence Park calling for the removal of Mr Kibaki.

More than 300 people have been killed and 70,000 made homeless in violence after the election, when Mr Kibaki claimed victory by only 271,000 votes, or 3.1 per cent of the ballots cast. Mr Odinga’s claims of electoral fraud have been backed by international observers. The bloodletting has strong tribal overtones, pitching Mr Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe against Mr Odinga’s Luo.

The tribalism that colours Kenyan life

The eruption of violence following Kenya's elections has brought to the fore the latent tribalism present in every day life

Multimedia

• Video comment: Richard Dowden, Africa expert

• Video: violence in Nairobi

Multimedia

• Pictures: Kenyan elections protests

BACKGROUND

• FCO issues Kenya travel warning

• 50 die in blazing church as tribal war looms

• ‘We’ve spent three days hiding in our homes’

• British tourists told to stay indoors

Related Links

• 'Kenya has gone mad . . . mad with fury'

• The tribalism that colours Kenyan life

• Kenyan Olympic runner hacked to death

Multimedia

• Video comment: Richard Dowden

• Video: violence in Nairobi

• Pictures: Kenyan elections protests

Thousands cowered in shacks and flimsy slum dwellings as clashes continued yesterday and political leaders traded insults and accusations over who was responsible for the conflict.

Headless bodies were reported to have been dragged from burnt-out shacks in Eldoret, in the west, where almost 50 people were killed when a church in which they were hiding was set ablaze on Tuesday.

“It is total mayhem up here,” one local journalist said. He had seen bodies with their limbs hacked off, and had been forced to flee for his own life.

A group of Kikuyus spoke of marauding gangs of rival tribesmen combing the area armed with machetes and knifes. “They are turning on any Kikuyu they find, though many us did not vote for Kibaki,” said James Mainga, whose aunt fled to the relative safety of the capital.

Nairobi took on a ghostlike appearance yesterday. The normally busy streets were deserted and most shops remained closed. But violence flared again in the slums that are home to millions of impoverished supporters of the two main rivals.

Unconfirmed reports said that gangs of Kikuyu youths had hunted down Luos, stripped them naked and forcibly circumcised them. The Luo are one of the few tribes in Kenya not to undergo circumcision and for years they have been the subject of derision for not being “real men”. Kikuyus living in Luo-dominated areas have barricaded themselves in their homes.

Mr Odinga, 62, is the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first Vice-President after the country gained independence from Britain in 1963. Many Luo think that he was tricked out of a deal to take over as President from Kenya’s founding father, Jomo Kenyatta. That resentment has simmered for years, and several leading Luo politicians have been killed in mysterious circumstances.

Mr Odinga stepped aside to allow Mr Kibaki to become President in 2002 on the understanding that he would step down after one term. The President changed his mind, delighting many Kikuyus, the largest tribe in Kenya, but infuriating the minority tribes, such as the Kalenjin, which Mr Odinga has knitted together in a strong coalition.

The Kalenjin, the tribe to which the former President, Daniel arap Moi, belonged, resent the perceived elitism and wealth of the Kikuyu even though Mr Moi came out in support of Mr Kibaki’s Party of National Union at last week’s election. Many of his tribesmen declined to follow his lead and instead voted for Mr Odinga in the hope that he might agree to give local tribes control of resources in the areas that they dominate.

The international community is desperately trying to negotiate a compromise. European Union monitors say that there were discrepancies in results announced at polling stations and figures given for the total tallies of the two candidates. In the results for parliamentary seats, which were considered to be much more realistic, Mr Kibaki’s top allies lost seat after seat.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, made a joint appeal for a “cessation of violence”. They urged Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga to “engage in a spirit of compromise that puts the democratic interests of Kenya first”.

If anything, attitudes hardened yesterday. Kivutha Kibwana, Mr Kibaki’s Minister of Lands, accused Mr Odinga of orchestrating “well-organised acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing”.

Professor Anyang Nyong’o, secretary-general of Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement, returned the insult. “How can we be responsible when people are angry because Kibaki stole the vote?” he said. “It is genocide because police are killing people.”

Tribal divisions

— 36 million Kenyans are grouped into more than 40 ethnic tribes, which fall into three main clusters: Bantus, which include President Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe; Nilotes, including Raila Odinga’s Luo tribe; and Cushites

— It is difficult to tell a person’s tribe from their appearance, but Nilotes are said to have darker skin and Cushites are more sinewy

— The Kikuyu are the largest ethnic group in Kenya, constituting 22 per cent of the population

— Kikuyus live mainly in the highland area of south-central Kenya, near Mount Kenya. Many Luos live in the flat country near Lake Victoria in the west

— Kikuyus staged the 1952 Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule, and became the political elite after independence. Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, was Kenya’s first Prime Minister in 1963 and the first President in 1964

Sources: CIA World Factbook; Encyclopaedia Britannica; kenyaspace.com; Times archives

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has issued a warning against all nonessential travel to Kenya. Britons in Kenya are being urged to exercise extreme caution and to avoid all political rallies and large public meetings for fear of violence breaking out.

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