What else do quotes like these bring to mind?
"They started cutting the church door with a panga [machete]. They were from around here, and even knew some of our names. We kneeled down and surrendered. It was quiet, as we were all praying. We knew this was the end," - Grace Githuthwa, a Kenyan in the Eldoret church.
The best coverage is on the blogs. Kenya Unlimited and Mashada. Some dispute that this is a simple tribal meltdown:
Most of the world press is reporting that the war in Kenya is between President Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and Raila Odinga’s Luo tribe. That is what the world believes.
This is exactly what the man men currently sitting comfortably inside State house would like the world to believe.
This is just NOT TRUE. Some of he most violent protests in the country have come from Rift Valley and the tribe here are not Luos. They are Kalenjins. Most of the violence in Nairobi has been in slums where there is a mixture of different tribes from different parts of the country. The same can be said about Mombasa, Kenyas coastal town. In other words what we have in Kenya is a popular uprising against a rigged election where some people have taken advantage to settle scores related to ethnicity. Like the Kalenjins who have been opposed to Kikuyu settlement in their land that happened in the 60s supervised by Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
It gets more complex because most Kenyans seem to be venting out their anger on Kikuyus.
One quote I can't quite banish from my mind:
My heart is heavy to report that there are refugees in Nairobi that are from Nairobi.
Some blog reports are terrifying:
Approximately 40-50K people are holded up at the compounds of ST. PATRICKS CATHOLIC CHURCH and ARNESENS HIGH SCHOOLl, both in Burnt Forest. There is no running water, food and ELECTRICITY has been cut. THIS MEANS THAT PEOPLE CANNOT RECHARGE THIER CELL PHONES and soon we’ll not be able to contact them. Also, due to the chaos/anarchy in these compounds, means that people, especially women are not any safer than if they were out in the chaos. There has been reports of rapes and molestations.
Then this:
30 hours after I send a frantic SOS: "Are you ok?" Finally, a phone call. The line is unclear, my family sound as though they are underwater. Suddenly, the idea of being “drowned” in violence sounds more than metaphorical.
(Photo: A Kenyan man leads his children away from his neighborhood as he flees violence during disturbances in the streets of the Mathare slum in Nairobi, Kenya 01 January 2008. At least 70,000 people have been displaced in western Kenya by the post-electoral unrest that has engulfed the east African country, the Kenya Red Cross said today. By Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty.)