Calm returns to Nairobi slum after days of violence
09 Nov 2006 16:02:53 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds U.N. comment paragraphs 8-9) By Bosire Nyairo NAIROBI, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Calm returned to one of Nairobi's largest slums on Thursday after five days of violence between rival gangs, which residents said killed at least eight people. Elite police forces sent into the labyrinthine Mathare slum -- which houses some 400,000 Kenyans in a valley in northeast Nairobi -- quelled the unrest attributed to a dispute over trade in the illicit backstreet brew chang'aa. "The situation is under control," government spokesman Alfred Mutua told a news conference. "What we have witnessed in Mathare is an upsurge of organised crime." Slum residents who already had few possessions were left with even less after the days of fighting between club and machete wielding gangs. Outside Mathare on Thursday, a Reuters reporter could see burned-out shacks and several hundred evacuees gathered on a hillside where they spent the night without shelter. Mathare's normally teeming mud paths and tracks were relatively deserted. "My house was burnt. I had to flee for safety. I do not know where two of my children are," said Fatima, an exhausted Mathare resident sitting on a chair she saved from her home along with other evacuees on a hill overlooking the slum. Roughly half of Nairobi's 3.5 million inhabitants live in slums, where gangs often rule and police seldom enter except to tackle major riots. Rights groups say authorities neglect places like Mathare, only responding when major crises erupt. Nairobi-based U.N. Human Settlements Programme Executive-Director Anna Tibaijuka said she was deeply concerned about the rising death toll in the clashes which have mainly affected women, children and HIV/AIDS victims. "The Director General calls for calm," a statement by the UN said. "In so doing she asks all concerned to address the underlying causes of the violence which has affected the lives of thousands of Nairobi's most vulnerable." Residents said calm had returned on Thursday afternoon as police maintained a heavy presence. GANGS, TRIBAL UNDERTONES Police say the violence involved two gangs -- the "Mungiki" and the "Taliban". Some of the gang members were using guns in the clashes which started over the weekend, police added. The Mungiki are an established sect in Kenya whose name means "multitude" in the local Kikuyu language and who are accused of killings and extortion rackets. The Taliban are a relatively new group that has grown up in Nairobi slums. Twenty-six alleged Mungiki adherents arrested during the violence were charged on Thursday with being members of an unlawful group. They denied the charges and were freed on bond. Kenyan police spokesman Gideon Kibunjah said seven deaths had been confirmed. "One person was stoned to death yesterday, allegedly by the Taliban," he said. But locals told Reuters the death toll was higher. "Yesterday, three more people were killed, making eight or nine in total," Alfonce Kioko, of the Mathare Community Resource Centre, told Reuters. Police spokesman Kibunjah added that the violence had "tribal undertones", with some politicians fomenting it. Since independence in 1963, Kenyan society and politics have been dogged by strife between its myriad ethnic groups. A local member of parliament, William Omondi, has been summoned for questioning for "an inflammatory statement ... in which he has threatened to mobilise the proscribed 'Taliban' gang in Mathare," a police statement said. The MP denied inciting violence. (Additional reporting by Robert Hummy)
