Mutilated bodies found a week after Kenya massacre

By Tim Cocks

KIAMBAA, Kenya (Reuters) - Faith Wairimu broke down into sobs when she stumbled across her husband's remains in a field after days searching in vain.

His head and torso were missing.

"It's him, he's dead," the farmer said, pressing her fist against her lips and closing her eyes to stem the tears.

"I recognize those were his trousers."

A week after a mob torched a church and killed 30 people in the worst single attack of Kenya's post-election violence, families are still finding the mutilated bodies of loved ones in nearby fields.

Corpses piled up on Tuesday in a mortuary in nearby Eldoret, and columns of smoke rose from outlying villages looted and burned in continuing attacks by gangs of youths.

Two police officers lifted the hacked-off legs of Wairimu's husband into a sack and loaded it on to their pickup truck.

"God help us," muttered one officer, shaking his head.

Youths rampaged in the Rift Valley's Kiambaa village on January 1, attacking the Kikuyu tribe of President Mwai Kibaki who was declared winner of a December 27 poll that critics say was rigged.

The mob shut dozens in a church, blocked the door with a mattress and set the church on fire, residents said.

Around 30 people burned to death while the attackers chased others into the surrounding fields, hacking at them with machetes.

"I can't believe they did this to him," wept Wairimu late on Monday as she looked at her husband's remains.

She said her mother had been killed by a poisoned arrow fired by one of the mob but she had held out hope she might find her husband alive.

"Where's the rest of the body? These things shouldn't happen in Kenya," she said.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS