Angry demonstrators in Kenya held protests for a second day on Tuesday in the western town of Kisumu, following the killing of a local politician, police said.
Police fired tear gas as hundreds of youths gathered in a slum area, a day after four demonstrators died in riots in the town, on the shore of Lake Victoria, some 350 kilometres west of the capital Nairobi.
“The group is trying to demonstrate into town,” said regional police chief Joseph Ole Tito. “We will not allow them to come and paralyse business in the town.”
Violent protests erupted after Shem Onyango Kwega, a candidate for a parliamentary seat in Kisumu in general elections due in March, was killed by unidentified armed men on Monday while driving in town.
Kwega, the local branch chairman of Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), was shot in the head and later died at the hospital.
His wife was seriously wounded and was taken to hospital.