GENEVA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators are heading to Kenya to conduct a three-week probe into violations committed in post-election bloodshed, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday. The team of seven, due to arrive in Nairobi on Wednesday, will report to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour who ordered the fact-finding inquiry. The U.N. investigators will interview survivors of ethnic violence, relatives of victims, authorities as well as opposition representatives and non-governmental organisations, spokesman Yvon Edoumou told a news briefing in Geneva. The death toll since the disputed Dec. 27 re-election of President Mwai Kibaki has risen to 1,000, the Kenyan Red Cross said on Tuesday. Most of the deaths have come from cycles of ethnic killings, police clashes with protesters and looting. Some 300,000 Kenyans have been displaced by the crisis, aid agencies say. Under the mediation of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the government and opposition led by Raila Odinga have agreed on principles to stem the violence and help the uprooted. In recent years, the U.N. human rights office has carried out special inquiries to establish the facts after massacres in places including Andizhan, Uzbekistan, Ivory Coast, East Timor, Lebanon and Sudan's Darfur region. Arbour would be expected to present the investigators' report on Kenya to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is holding its next session in Geneva from March 3-28. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Jonathan Lynn)
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (C) addresses a news conference after a meeting with business leaders in Nairobi, February 5, 2008. Business leaders on Tuesday met with Annan, and urged action ...
