By David Lewis ELDORET, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Youths burned a church in Kenya's Rift Valley on Saturday as ethnic tensions showed no sign of ebbing despite an agreement between the government and opposition to try to end weeks of bloodshed. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brokered a deal between Kenya's feuding politicians on Friday to take immediate steps to end post-election violence which has killed at least 850 people and displaced more than a quarter of a million. Riots, clashes with security forces and ethnic reprisals broke out after President Mwai Kibaki was returned to power in a Dec. 27 poll which his rival Raila Odinga says was rigged. The unrest, which has often pitted Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe against Odinga's Luo tribe, has tarnished the image of a country long seen as one of east Africa's most stable and prosperous. A mob surrounded the Great Harvest Evangelical Church near Eldoret on Saturday, where at least two people were sheltering, and burned it to the ground. A witness said those inside managed to escape unharmed. "They burned it," said Peter Kaguru, charred beams and bricks smouldering behind him. "I don't know who it was, but they broke the gate and came in. The pastor's a Kikuyu, the plot belongs to a Kikuyu. Maybe that has something to do with it," he said. Clashes between gangs representing the Kisii and Kalenjin tribes also broke out on the road between the Rift Valley towns of Kisii and Kericho, witnesses said. They said the violence was in reaction to the shooting of opposition legislator David Kimutai Too, a Kalenjin who was killed in Eldoret on Thursday by a Kisii traffic policeman. Police called it crime of passion but the opposition said it was a political assassination. He was the second opposition deputy killed this week. "The situation down there is extremely tense. Clashes were reported yesterday. There are two communities fighting each other," Red Cross spokesman Anthony Mwangi said. As well as pledging to stop the violence, the parties agreed on Friday to discuss delivering humanitarian aid to refugees and to find a way to tackle the political impasse, hoping this would happen within 15 days of talks starting on Jan. 29. The unrest has taken the lid off decades-old divisions between tribal groupings over land, wealth and power, dating from British colonial rule and stoked by Kenyan politicians during 44 years of independence. "Leaders ... publicly profess peace ... In the meantime their dogs of war are generating fear. They slay, rape and loot," columnist Barrack Muluka wrote in The Standard newspaper on Saturday. (Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Nick Tattersall)
A child plays on the floor inside a church, where people displaced during post-election violence are taking shelter, in Nairobi's Kibera slum February 1, 2008. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in Kenya ...
