Kenya was convulsed by weeks of ethnic bloodshed after President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election at the end of December.

The violence largely pitted supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who belongs to the ethnic Luo group, against Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

More than 1,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes, some crossing into Uganda, according to the Kenyan Red Cross.

Outbreaks of violence along ethnic lines have uprooted large numbers of people in Kenya over the past 15 years.

Kenya's transition to multiparty politics in the 1990s saw an upsurge of clashes and displacement, and violence spiked in the election years of 1992, 1997 and 2002.

Unresolved issues of land and property, going back to the colonial period, are often identified as the key reason for conflict. But in many cases political infighting and efforts by local politicians to garner votes are the trigger.