Kenyans blocked from return home

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/africa/7470049.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Some 50 families displaced by post-election violence in Kenya have been turned away by neighbours after trying to return home.

The families have been forced back to a camp in the western town of Eldoret.

The BBC's Wanyama wa Chebusiri in Kenya says the development is a huge blow to the government's plan to resettle thousands of displaced people.

Violence following Kenya's disputed presidential elections in December left some 1,500 dead and 600,000 homeless.

Our reporter says ethnic Kalenjin supporters of Prime Minister Raila Odinga refused to let members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu community return home.

Samuel Njuguna, one of those forced back to the camp in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, said a district officer had earlier told the families they could move.

But when they arrived and started to unload their possessions they were threatened by their former neighbours, he said.

"The people were coming close to us and they started screaming, shouting... 'Just go back to where you come from. We are going to kill you.'"

A local pastor said his church would be burned down if the families left their possessions there, he said.

Some Rift Valley residents are demanding an amnesty over the post-election violence before resettlement goes ahead.

Mr Njuguna said he still hoped to go back to his village.

"It is my request to the government to build a police station so that in case we have any problem we can report it there," he said.