The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) expressed alarm Tuesday at violence in a sprawling complex of refugee camps in northwestern Kenya that has left eight dead in the past week. Violence at the Kakuma camps, sparked by reports of the attempted rape of a young refugee girl last Tuesday, has claimed the lives of eight refugees from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan, UNHCR reported. The agency is "very troubled by what has happened over the past few days," spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva. The overcrowded camps house about 180,000 refugees from more than 20 countries. The reports of the attempted rape sparked fighting among rival groups of South Sudanese youths, in which one person was killed. Kenyan security personnel intervened to bring the situation under control, but violence erupted again over the weekend when a child was hit by a motorcycle taxi, Edwards said. The situation deteriorated again on Monday, when four more refugees were killed. "Together with the Kenyan authorities, we are continuing to work with the refugees to restore calm, and [are] appealing for calm and peaceful coexistence among all communities in the camp," Edwards said.
