Living in fear in Kenyan town

By Nick Tattersall

NAROK, Kenya (Reuters) - In the burnt-out market place, a youth appears swinging a machete, its blade glinting in the late afternoon sun.

Men brandishing sticks and clubs run down the street towards him as children scurry into a side alley. The youth vanishes, his brief appearance a chilling reminder of the menace that stalks this town in Kenya's Rift Valley.

At least seven people have been hacked or clubbed to death in Narok, the gateway to Kenya's famed Masai Mara Game Reserve, during attacks involving Maasai tribesmen in recent days.

"The men are staying outside to guard, some are even sleeping outside," said Sammy Kulumwa, a 43-year old businessman in a suit jacket and felt hat, a stick in his hand.

"You just tell your women and children to stay at home, to stay inside," he said.

This provincial town of low-rise buildings among acacia trees and scrubland would normally be full of tourists being ferried between the capital Nairobi and the Masai Mara.

But a political crisis triggered by President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election on December 27 has unlocked ethnic bloodletting here which the security forces are struggling to contain.

Six of the seven bodies lying sliced and beaten in Narok's morgue were victims of fighting on Friday, when witnesses said several hundred Maasai tribesmen attacked the Majengo neighbourhood with machetes, spears and arrows.