Calm returns to Kenya

NAIROBI: Kenyan police maintained tight security yesterday as calm returned after a court ruling upholding Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential election win sparked anger among his rival’s supporters, leading to riots that left two people dead.
Outgoing Prime Minister Raila Odinga had challenged the result of the March 4 poll hoping for a rerun, but while he begrudgingly accepted the Supreme Court’s decision on Saturday, youths in his strongholds were enraged. Riots broke out immediately after the ruling, leaving two dead in the city of Kisumu, said Joseph Ole Tito, police chief for the western Nyanza region.
Sporadic clashes were also reported in Nairobi’s Mathare slum yesterday morning with police firing tear gas at youths who had pelted them with stones. But calm had been restored by early afternoon as security forces maintained a strong presence in and around Mathare, home to many of Odinga’s supporters.
Calm had also returned to western Kenya, another Odinga bastion, although many shops in the main city of Kisumu remained boarded up after Saturday’s looting.
Emmanuel Owako, a local Red Cross coordinator said a total of 24 people in the western region had been admitted to hospital with injuries after the rioting and about 15 of them had gunshot wounds.
The vast majority had been discharged by yesterday.
There were few cars on the roads with residents preferring to walk to and from church yesterday after several vehicles were damaged Saturday by stone-throwing youths.