Crackdown call after Kenya deaths

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Kenya's president has vowed to punish the perpetrators of an outbreak of violence that left at least 29 people dead in a central town on Monday.

Mwai Kibaki described the killings in Karatina as "heinous crimes" and "a matter of great concern" to Kenya.

Police say local residents decided to fight suspected members of the banned Mungiki sect who had been extorting money from them.

At least 60 suspects have been detained since the fighting.

Media reports say there has been a spate of killings targeting the sect.

The Mungiki, mainly from President Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group, are seen as Kenya's version of the mafia.

'All-out war'

On Tuesday evening, President Kibaki ordered the country's interior minister "to get to the root cause" of the killings in Karatina, north of the capital Nairobi.

"Security forces should provide detailed accounts of what transpired with a view to ensuring such heinous crimes never recur," he said.

Mr Kibaki also expressed his condolences to the victims' families, saying the killings were "a matter of great concern to the nation".

Police and local media earlier said that groups of residents in Karatina started attacking suspected Mungiki members and slashing some of them to death, after the gang had threatened to expel everyone from the town.

They said the Mungiki then fought back.

Police say machetes and other weapons have been collected from the scene.

The Mungiki gang has continued to operate despite being banned in 2002, extorting money from owners of minibus taxis and other public transport vehicles.

In 2007, more than 100 suspected sect members were killed in a police crackdown after a series of grisly beheadings blamed on the sect.

Last year it was accused of carrying out revenge attacks after ethnic Kikuyus were killed by rival gangs in post-election violence.