Bodies lie in slum after Kenya police shootings

By Nick Tattersall

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Rosina Otieno, 15, was watching television with her family when police fired on anti-government protesters outside her house in Nairobi's vast Kibera slum.

She opened the door to see what was happening and immediately fell back into the small room with a bullet in her stomach, her father Thomas told Reuters.

"The gun was aimed at her, it was not a bullet that just came and hit her," Otieno told Reuters as his daughter's body was driven to nearby Masaba hospital in a white pick-up truck.

"The policeman turned at her and directed the gun."

Rosina shared the journey with a neighbor, his skull shattered by another bullet.

For three days security forces around Kenya have blocked banned demonstrations against President Mwai Kibaki's re-election at a December 27 poll the opposition says was rigged.

Authorities say demonstrations would lead to looting and more violence.

At least seven people were killed on Friday in Kibera, where corpses lay in the muddy alleys of the sprawling shanty-town.

Human rights groups and the opposition accuse police of firing indiscriminately at unarmed protesters. The authorities say they only shoot looters and rioters.

Youths armed with stones and slingshots hid among the tin-roofed shacks of Kibera, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with scores of heavily armed officers.

"KILL US ALL"

Some tried to uproot a railway line running through the slum, but scattered when police started shooting.

Bursts of automatic gunfire triggered women's screams and residents tried to scamper to safety.

One man in a red baseball cap and black T-shirt fell to the ground, blood gushing from his knee.

Charles Omuse, 27, said he and his neighbors were forced out of their homes after officers fired tear gas.