African leaders express alarm over Kenya violence

from AlertNet

African leaders voiced a chorus of alarm on Thursday about Kenya's rapid decline from regional peacemaker to the continent's biggest concern, and called for urgent action to stop the killing.

"If Kenya burns, what is left?" the African Union's top diplomat, Alpha Oumar Konare, said in an opening speech to a three-day summit, echoing widespread shock at the once stable country's plunge into turmoil.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the leaders, meeting in neighbouring Ethiopia, that the violence which has killed 850 people was "threatening to escalate to catastrophic levels".

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