KEY POINTS:
NAIROBI - Kenyan police were yesterday fighting to control gangs who have killed at least 27 people over three days of chaotic violence in the town of Nakuru, capital of the Rift Valley region.
Burned bodies were being removed from the streets and more than 100 people were in hospital with injuries from burns to machete and arrow wounds.
Hundreds more were forced to shelter in churches after homes were set on fire by mobs settling tribal scores.
The town, in western Kenya, had previously been spared the scenes that erupted across the country after last month's deeply flawed presidential re-election that left some 700 people dead.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has joined efforts to resolve weeks of unrest and yesterday called for an investigation into "gross and systematic" rights abuses in Kenya.
"Let us not kid ourselves and think that this is an electoral problem. It is much broader and much deeper," said Annan.
"We cannot accept the pattern every five years [that] these sorts of incidents take place and no one is held to account," he added, referring to Kenya's cycle of election-year violence.
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