Tribal violence has caused the Kenyans to forget that they are Kenyans.
Even as Kenya Red Cross staff cleared the last of the bodies from the church's
smouldering remains, traces of the massacre still haunted it.
Pungent smoke rose from the blackened rubble where walls once sat. A
brightly-patterned piece of a dress with burnt edges lay in ash. Underneath it:
fragments of white bone.
About 30 Kikuyus died when a mob torched the church near Eldoret in the
Rift Valley on Tuesday -- a slaughter evoking memories of ethnic violence
usually associated with other countries in Africa, not one of its most stable. They are asking 'Who are you?' in Kalenjin language. If you don't understand,
you are removed and killed with a panga (machete)," said Jane Chepchirchir, one
of scores of people at Eldoret airport trying to flee to Nairobi The Rift Valley is home primarily to the Kalenjin tribe of former president
Daniel arap Moi, but many Kikuyus have moved there to farm and intermarried, as
in Chepchirchir's case |
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