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A MOB has set fire to a church in western Kenya, killing as many as 50 villagers sheltering inside as post-election violence swept the east African country.

Tribal clashes have rocked Kenya since President Mwai Kibaki`s disputed re-election on Sunday.
At least 270 people have died nationwide and the death toll looked sure to rise.

Initial reports from witnesses said about 30 charred bodies, including women and children, were strewn about the smouldering wreckage of the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal church near Eldoret town.

But a Red Cross volunteer has told the Associated Press that 50 people died in the horrific incident. The volunteer said she had counted the bodies.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said he could not yet give a definite death toll.

"This is the first time in history that any group has attacked a church. We never expected the savagery to go so far," he said in the capital Nairobi.

Reinforcements were being rushed to the area to arrest all troublemakers "regardless of their status in society", he said.

"Our officers are exercising a lot of restraint in maintaining the law. This restraint will not last forever."

Residents and a security source said about 200 people had been seeking refuge at the church.
The victims were mostly Kikuyus from Mr Kibaki`s ethnic group who fled homes in the area in fear of their lives.

It suffered ethnic violence in 1992 and 1997 when hundreds of people - mainly Kikuyus - were killed and thousands more displaced in land clashes.

A Catholic priest said security had deteriorated fast since Sunday, with thousands of terrified, mainly Kikuyu, refugees now taking shelter in churches in and around Eldoret as vigilante gangs roamed outside.

"There are four to five thousand in the main Cathedral, and thousands in other churches," Father Paul Brennan, an Irishman, said. "Houses are being burned. It is too dangerous to go outside and count the dead."

A senior security official in Rift Valley confirmed a mob had burned down the church. He said as many as 15,000 people were sheltering at churches and police stations in Eldoret.

"We have lived together for years, we`ve intermarried, we have children, but now they`ve asked them to turn against them," the security official said.

President Kibaki has called on all political parties to meet to try to broker some end to the violence. But opposition leader Raila Odinga has refused to meet.

"If he announces that he was not elected, then I will talk to him," Mr Odinga was quoted as saying by the AP, accusing Mr Kibaki of genocide.

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