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2,000 Kenyans flee to Uganda to escape post-election violence

Other News Materials 17 January 2008 13:02 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa ) - Another 2,000 Kenyans fleeing the latest round of post-election violence have crossed into Uganda, a senior cabinet minister said Thursday.

The new arrivals add to the more than 6,000 Kenyans who had come to Uganda following the violence that turned tribal after last month's disputed elections that returned Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki to power.

Violence resumed this week when the opposition leader and the runner up in the controversial general elections, Raila Odinga, called for further demonstrations soon after a new opposition- dominated parliament was sworn in.

Over 600 people have been killed during the post-election clashes that also left tens of thousands displaced in the East African state.

"I have reports that about 2,000 Kenyans have crossed into Uganda out of the tension there. We are yet to get the exact figures of the new arrivals," Deputy Disaster and Refugees Minister Musa Ecweru told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

According to a press statement released by the United Nations humanitarian coordination agency OCHA Thursday, the situation in neighbouring Kenya continues to be tense, particularly in the wake of the election Wednesday of a member of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, which backs the presidential candidacy of Raila Odinga as speaker of parliament.

The Ugandan government was planning to relocate the Kenyan refugees into an area about 40 kilometres from the border as required by UN regulations, Ecweru said.

The refugees were being moved from areas close their country of origin as required by the UN conventions. But if the situation in Kenya was to become protracted for years, the displaced would be moved to the existing gazetted refugee camps further inside Uganda, the minister said.

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