NAIROBI, March 6: Nine people were killed and over 100 houses torched on Thursday in fresh violence in Kenya’s Rift Valley province, a police commander and a local official said.

“The attack targeted two villages. Nine people have been killed and eleven other people have sustained serious panga cuts and have been rushed to local hospitals,” said Laikipia West district commissioner Julius Mutula.

The violence took place in villages around the town of Laikipia, northwest of Nairobi.

Mutula, citing police, said the attack in Laikipia’s Soilo and Muhotetu villages appeared to have been motivated by revenge following Wednesday night’s killing of a woman in the same area.

“It appears to be a revenge attack because there was a woman who was killed in the area last night and houses torched,” he said, adding the area is inhabited by Kikuyu, Kalenjins and Turkana tribes. A police commander speaking on condition of anonymity also said that at least 100 houses had been torched.

The killings came a week after President Mwai Kibaki signed a power-sharing agreement with opposition leader Raila Odinga. The deal was aimed at settling a political crisis that led to partly tribal violence which claimed at least 1,500 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands.

On Thursday, Kibaki urged Kenyan deputies to pass laws enshrining the power-sharing deal.

The Kenyan violence started after Odinga accused Kibaki of stealing the Dec 27 presidential elections. International monitors said the poll was marred by widespread irregularities.

The crisis tapped into simmering resentment over land, poverty and the dominance of the Kikuyu, Kibaki’s tribe, in Kenyan politics and business since independence in 1963.

Besides the civilian toll, the crisis also affected the economy, particularly weakening the key tourism and agriculture sectors, which both sides have pledged to rebuild.—AFP