Rebecca Muthoni knelt before the charred wooden cross still hanging on the blackened walls of her church yesterday and prayed for the safe return of her 15-year-old daughter.

“I think she is alive . . . People say they have seen her. I pray God for her return and to forgive the people who did this,” she said.

Rioters and looters torched Rebecca’s modest home on the edge of the Nairobi slum of Kibera last week in post-election violence which has killed more than 300 people, created 250,000 refugees and wreaked enormous economic damage on one of Africa’s most prosperous and hitherto stable countries.

“They let us flee but we were separated,” she explained.

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

• Scottish nuns send desperate plea from Kenya

• Expat housewife's blog chronicles the chaos

• Barack Obama’s Kenyan family prays for peace

The rioters, who targeted members of the Kikuyu tribe of President Kibaki, also set ablaze the nearby Lutheran church where she worships, its small clinic and nursery school.

Nothing was spared. Similar incidents took place all over the country as it was seized by the worst inter-ethnic violence for decades.

Yesterday — in scenes repeated by millions across the country — the church was packed as people held moments of silence for the dead. Pastor Dennis Meeker urged congregants to “pray for those who tried to kill you and destroy you”. Many though were angry and disillusioned.

“I voted for change but look at those over there — they voted for looting,” one man, Alfred Karume, said pointing at a group of young looters breaking up a still-smouldering car.

The violence in Nairobi pitted supporters of the defeated opposition candidate Raila Odinga, a Luo from one of Kenya’s oldest political dynasties, and members of other smaller tribes in his coalition against gangs of Kikuyu thugs from neighbouring slums.

“I now even regret voting, I will never vote again in my life,” said Mr Karume, an artist who lives in the Kibera slum and voted for Mr Odinga. “Raila was cheated but these boys, they are putting us all to shame.”

Such comments are now widespread as the country tries to deal with the legacy of the most hotly contested election since independence from Britain in 1963 and a dreadful humanitarian crisis the violence which followed it has spawned.

The Red Cross and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are battling to deliver supplies to thousands of people who have lost all their belongings and are camping in assembly halls and on patches of waste ground across the country. The UN estimates that as many as 250,000 people will need food aid for three months and on Saturday 20 WFP lorries carrying food to one of the worst-hit areas needed a police escort.

In Kericho, southwestern Kenya, a group of Franciscan nuns sheltering 1,500 people from marauding gangs in their missionary compound faxed an emergency plea to the leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics. Sister Kelly, the head of the order, said that they were running out of food and water. Blocked roads meant aid could not get through, and the situation was dire.

Most Kenyans are desperate for life to return to normal. Across the political divide they are showing increasing signs of anger with politicians, who they blame for stoking the violence with campaigns marred by tribal slurs and suggestions of score-settling when power changed hands.

Rose Shikuku, 42, one of thousands camped out at the race course in Nairobi and a member of a smaller tribe, said: “It is not good this. Everybody is suffering, not just Luos and Kikuyus, but all of us. The politicians created this problem. Now they do nothing to stop it.”

Kenya’s vocal press was united yesterday in condemning the entire political class which it accused of cynically whipping up tribal feelings for short-term gain.

Despite the growing public pressure there was still little sign of an imminent deal between the two rival leaders who have a history of animosity that has broadly followed ethnic lines.

Washington’s top Africa diplomat Jendayi Frazer and South Africa’s Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu shuttled between both camps.

John Kufuor, the Ghanaian President, is also due to visit in his capacity as chairman of the African Union.

On Saturday Mr Kibaki said that he was ready to form “a government of national unity” but the offer was met with scepticism by the opposition.

Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) wants Mr Kibaki, 76, to quit and an international mediator to broker talks prior to a new election in three to six months. ODM was also accused of vote-rigging in its stronghold areas.

“A government of national unity is not acceptable to us,” Salim Lone, an ODM spokesman, said. “There are other formulations, such as a coalition government with genuine power-sharing, that we are willing to discuss.”

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