Kenyan police battled protesters in blazing slums today after disputed elections returned President Mwai Kibaki to power and triggered turmoil in which more than 70 people have been killed.
Kenyan TV broadcaster KTN said the death toll could be as high as 124.
Riots spread across the country, from opposition strongholds in the west near the Uganda border to Nairobi's shanty-towns and the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean Coast.
In the western town of Kisumu, a hotbed of opposition support, 21 bodies lay in and around a hospital mortuary, brought in overnight and in the morning, witnesses said. Most had gunshot wounds.
Opposition supporters protest on a main road in the Bamburi area of the coastal city of Mombasa today
In Nairobi's Mathare slum, police told residents to remain in their homes under threat of being shot, witnesses said.
The violence threatens to deter investors from east Africa's largest economy and damage Kenya 's reputation as an oasis of relative stability in a volatile and war-scarred region.
Much of the fighting pitched Luos, who support opposition leader Raila Odinga, against Mr Kibaki's ethnic Kikuyu group.
Mr Odinga called for a mass rally later this week in Nairobi's main park to protest the vote. "We are going to call for a meeting at Uhuru park where we expect a million Kenyans to attend," he told a news conference.
As supporters celebrated in his highland homeland, Mr Kibaki urged Kenyans to "set aside the passions" from a vote he won by a narrow margin of 230,000 votes in the country of 36 million people.
Mr Kibaki, who turned round a dire economy under his strongman predecessor Daniel arap Moi into average five per cent growth since 2002, now faces the m task of reuniting a country where ethnic tension has periodically sparked bloodletting.
Having led every opinion poll bar one since September, then taken a strong lead in early results, the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) was dismayed to see Mr Kibaki shade the vote. Mr Kibaki took 4.58 million votes to Mr Odinga's 4.35 million - but the results were marred by accusations of multiple voting, disappeared returning officers and "doctoring."
In Nairobi's Korogocho slum, which has been rocked by clashes between protesters and police, a witness reported seeing 15 bodies.
Witnesses and local media reported over 30 more deaths, bringing the death toll to around 70 since Thursday's vote. More died in chaos before the election.
Trying to defuse one of the most volatile moments in Kenya since 1963 independence, the government kept a ban on live TV broadcasts and flooded the streets with security forces.
"We are in an undeclared state of emergency," said a statement from civil society groups. "The consequences of a stolen election must be clear to all Kenyans."