NAIROBI, Jan 17: Kenyan police fired live rounds and tear gas in a second straight day of deadly clashes with demonstrators opposed to the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.

Police reported five deaths across the country but opposition leader Raila Odinga said seven people had been killed in Nairobi alone, mainly in or around the Mathare slum district.

More than 700 people have been killed across the East African nation since the Dec 27 election which Odinga says was rigged by the president to secure his re-election.

The Commonwealth on Thursday stepped up international pressure on Kibaki, with the group’s chief Don McKinnon saying that procedures after the vote “did not meet international standards.” Odinga said the dead included a driver for an opposition member of parliament, shot by police as he attempted to leave his house. The MP, Elizabeth Ongoro, said six people “were shot by uniformed police officers”.

But police said two people had been shot dead in Mathare and three others in the western opposition stronghold of Kisumu, bringing their total toll from two days of clashes with opposition protesters to seven.

A senior officer in Kisumu said two young men were killed by police after they started hurling stones. A woman was killed by a stray bullet in the Otonglo area, another commander added.

Police fired tear gas and live shots into the air to disperse hundreds of protesters in Nairobi’s slums, and in the western cities of Kisumu, and Eldoret.

Odinga claimed on Thursday that more than 1,000 people have been killed in the post-election violence, which has shattered Kenya’s image as a beacon of stability in East Africa as well as dealt a serious blow to the region’s largest economy.

Odinga called three days of demonstrations after mediated efforts to bring the two sides together failed last week.

But once protests began on Wednesday, police cracked down in a grim echo of the clashes and tribal killings first sparked by the presidential poll. On top of the dead, more than a quarter of a million people have been displaced.

In Eldoret, hospital workers said Thursday that police had fired tear gas inside a hospital and live rounds outside it.

“They fired tear gas inside the emergency section. They shot towards the hospital,” Tony Kirwa, the hospital spokesman said, adding that police had beaten at least 14 employees, while three injured people had been admitted.

Although downtown Nairobi remained relatively calm, police fired tear gas in front of a Nairobi hotel, near a group of opposition officials.

“We are determined to get to Uhuru Park (for the main protest) no matter what it takes. We are even ready to die,” Najib Balala, a top ODM official said.

Police said they had shot and wounded two youths in the capital’s Kibera slum and thwarted an attempt to loot a cargo train there.

A spokesman for Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement said in a statement that the party would include reports of police violence, including images of police beating protesters captured on local television, in a complaint to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“This killing and other acts of violence inflicted on peaceful protestors will be part of the case we are filing,” said Salim Lone in a statement.

Odinga warned on Wednesday that the opposition victory this week in winning a vote for the position of parliamentary speaker had been the start of a fresh challenge to Kibaki’s rule.“The main intent of the opposition is to destroy the way of life of ordinary Kenyans,” government spokesman Alfred Mutua charged on Thursday.—AFP