(Adds reported arrival of Mkapa, Machel paragraph 22) By C. Bryson Hull and Nick Tattersall NAIROBI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Kenya's opposition accused police of killing seven people on Thursday during a second day of clashes with demonstrators protesting against President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election. In the capital Nairobi, and the western towns of Kisumu and Eldoret, police fired teargas and bullets during rallies called by opposition leader Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), but banned by police. More protests are planned on Friday. Odinga, who accuses Kibaki of stealing victory in the Dec. 27 ballot, said police shot dead seven people in the capital. "Police are shooting innocent civilians at will ... the government has turned this country into a killing field of innocents," he told reporters. Police had no immediate comment. ODM member of parliament Elizabeth Ongoro Masha said her driver was among those killed by officers who surrounded part of the Mathare slum overnight. "They were targeting people perceived as being group leaders," she told Reuters. Witnesses saw three wounded men carried into a hospital in another Nairobi slum, Kibera. One died from gunshot wounds to the neck, doctors said. In the opposition stronghold of Kisumu, a witness said police shot dead two men and a woman. Relatives of a 10-year-old boy shot on Wednesday said he had died in hospital.Three other people were killed there on Wednesday, including a youth seen shot and then kicked by a policeman in footage on local KTN television. Police said they were attacked first, but there was growing criticism from human rights organisations and others of police tactics. Kenya's rapid plunge into crisis has tarnished its democratic credentials, horrified world powers, scared off tourists and hurt one of Africa's most promising economies. In three weeks since the vote, about 650 people have died in killings and clashes between police and protesters. TRAIN HIJACKED A quarter of a million people, mostly from Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, have fled their homes in turmoil set off by a vote that foreign observers, including the Commonwealth, say was deeply flawed. In Kibera, part of Odinga's Nairobi constituency, a Reuters cameraman said people had hijacked a train and stolen its cargo. Earlier, a policeman in Mathare who asked not to be identified said some slum dwellers were shooting at officers. In the Rift valley town of Eldoret, police chasing protesters fired teargas into the emergency wing of the main hospital, striking a security guard, a hospital official said. The European Parliament recommended EU budgetary aid be frozen until the crisis is resolved though Kenya, unlike many of its African neighbours, does not depend on aid which accounts for less than 5 percent of its budget. Western countries have urged Kenya to allow peaceful protests but the government says tempers are too high and rallies would degenerate into looting and rioting. The U.S. State Department blamed both sides for the latest violence and said the deaths of more civilians was "terrible". "More than anything else they need to come together for the Kenyan people and for Kenya's future," a U.S. spokesman said. Former U.N. head Kofi Annan, due to lead talks to end the standoff, is recovering from a bout of flu that delayed his trip, the United Nations said, but gave no date for his arrival. Late on Thursday, local broadcaster KTN said two members of Annan's team of "Eminent Africans" had arrived in Kenya -- former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, and Graca Machel, wife of former South African leader Nelson Mandela. The opposition ODM, left with few options after Kibaki entrenched his administration and talks brokered by African leaders failed, has taken its struggle to the streets. The government accuses Odinga of orchestrating ethnic killings and favouring violence over legal challenges. The ODM says the courts are biased and would take years to rule. "They are just waking up at 10 o'clock, eating eggs and sausages, giving interviews and planning how to disrupt people's lives," government spokesman Alfred Mutua told reporters. (Additional reporting by George Obulutsa, Daniel Wallis, Helen Nyambura-Mwaura, Joseph Sudah, Bosire Nyairo, Andrew Cawthorne; Guled Mohamed in Kisumu; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Sue Pleming in Washington; Editing by Barry Moody and Tim Pearce)
Riot policemen detain an opposition protester during protests in Nairobi's Kibera slum January 17, 2008. Kenya's opposition accused police of shooting dead seven people on Thursday during a second day of ...
