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Police officers remove the kiosk, which was used to block the Kondele-Kakamega road yesterday. Photos by Sylvester Onyango
One man was shot dead by police and 19 other people injured - 10 of them by shooting - as chaos reigned in Kisumu City, yesterday.
Police arrested 96 people, as rioting demonstrators threatened to take over parts of the city in western Kenya.
The man was killed as he joined rioters who attempted to storm a police post at the Kondele slum, police said.
He was the second person to die in Kisumu in protests linked to political reforms, since Saturday.
Police dismissed the demonstrators as simply thugs and looters, saying they had not given notice of any rally.
Scores of the protesters received minor injuries, while two Administration Police officers were stoned unconscious by mobs in Nyalenda estate. They were taken to the Kisumu District Hospital in critical condition.
Those shot included two schoolboys aged 10 and 12 years. They were hit by stray bullets in Kondele and Nyalenda.
Others included a woman shot in the stomach as she sheltered in her shop from the rioting, a boda boda (bicycle taxi) passenger, and another man who claimed a policeman shot him in the ankle as he pleaded for mercy.
They were all taken to hospital after being shot in the chaos that coincided with the Saba Saba Day anniversary. It began in the notorious Kondele area, when a bunch of youths raided the police post at about 8.30am, pelting it with stones.
Smoke billows from a burning tyre after youths set it alight in the middle of a road in Kisumu city during yesterday's fracas. Photos by Sylvester Onyango
A handful officers retaliated by firing several rounds of live bullets into the air to scare the youths away. Sources at the station later said the besieged police officers used the live ammunition because the station's armourer, who had the keys to the store containing tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, had not reported for work at the time of attack.
Chanting "Katiba Must Come! Kibaki Must Go!", the rioters poured onto the adjacent Kisumu-Kakamega highway where they stoned vehicles and set up a barricade using telephone booths and boulders. They also lit bonfires of tyres and twigs.
Terrified drivers abandoned their vehicles on the road, causing a huge traffic jam, and ran off under a shower of stones.
Travellers to and from the city suffered when public service vehicles were withdrawn from the routes, causing them to trek long distances or hire bicycle taxis.
As the rioting threatened to get out of hand with the violence spilling into neighbouring estates of Manyatta and Migosi at around 9am, contingents of riot police from Kisumu Central police station were rushed to the area.
Businesses and shops were hurriedly closed, as police engaged rioters in running battles through alleys to prevent looting.
There was a lull in the rioting in Kondele and Manyatta after 10am as the focus of violence moved to Nyalenda, the scene of skirmishes between rioters and police at the weekend.
On Saturday, several businesses were burnt down and a man shot by police later died at Nyanza Provincial General Hospital.
Yesterday, however, police were moved in promptly to contain the situation.
Kisumu police chief Clement Gatogo said the violence was thuggery, and warned those responsible of dire consequences.
He said police had not been given notice of any demonstrations by any political group and he said he did not know who the protesters were representing.
"These are thugs out to create a conducive environment to loot other people's property because if they were real agitators for a Constitution, they would have placed a notice with us and had a peaceful meeting at any point of their choice," he said.
After the rioting died down, business remained low-key in the lakeside town, with police deployed to clamp down on any new outbreaks of violence.
The streets were clear of hawkers, and most supermarkets remained closed.
By 2pm many of the shooting victims had been taken to the provincial hospital and others to the district hospital.
One of those at the district hospital, Standard Six pupil Jackton Ochieng of Kasagam Primary School, had just stepped out of the school gate at 12.30pm when he was hit by a bullet in the left thigh.
The pupils had been sent home following the rioting in the neighbourhood.
He said: "We had been told to go home because the violence around the school was unbearable. But when I stepped out of the gate, I felt something hot in my thigh followed by a loud noise and the next thing I saw was blood oozing from my thigh."
He went on: " My leg grew numb and I fell on the ground.
"The next thing is that I was carried onto a vehicle belonging to the Kenya Red Cross Society."
Another victim in the same hospital, Mr Tom Omondi, who was later moved to the provincial hospital, said he was shot outside his house near Kachok as he shifted some of his belongings. He said a policeman fired a live bullet into his right ankle as he pleaded for mercy.
Also rushed to the district hospital was Mr Wyclife Kemoli who had alighted from a boda boda near Western shopping centre in Nyalenda, at 1pm.
He said he was walking home when an officer fired at him from the back and hit him in the thigh.
Ten-year-old Patrick Onyango, a pupil at Kudho Primary school, was shot by police as he crossed Kondele market at around 10am. Hit in the thigh, he was rushed to Nyanza Provincial hospital.
One doctor at the hospital, a Dr Odondi, said a woman named Sabina Atieno, aged 22, had been taken into the operating theatre to have a bullet removed from her stomach. A tailor at Kondele, she was shot in her shop as she sheltered from the riots with her sister.
Speaking at Parliament Buildings, the Kisumu Town East MP Mr Gor Sunguh and Nominated MP Mr Oloo Aringo claimed the Government wanted to isolate people from Nyanza.
They asked the Government to stop using force against them, warning that if the situation continued, they would ensure the coalition was defeated as Kanu had been.
Mr Sunguh claimed outsiders were used to provoke chaos in his constituency, while Mr Aringo asked the Government to stop using police for political purposes.
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