Funeral procession: riot police; crowd running from tear gas; Homa Bay cathedral; people queueing to pay last respects; Mrs Mboya weeping; coffin carried from cathedral; police holding back crowd; coffin ferried to Rusinga Island; crowd as ferry arrives.




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Background: Tribal tension, which has followed the assassination of Mr Tom Mboye, spread on Thursday (10 July) to the late Minister's birthplace of Rusinga Island, in Lake Victoria, where he is to be burried today (11 July) with the full honours of a Luo tribal elder.

President Jome Kenyatta will not attend the funeral, a Presidential spokesman has announced. The decision was widely expected in view of clashes between the Luo, Mr Mboya's clansmen, and members of the dominant Kikuyu since the shooting of the Minister by an unknown gunman in a Nairobi street last Saturday (5 July).

Luo tribesmen stoned the President's car as he arrived for a requiem mass for Mr Mboya in Nairobi on Tuesday (8 July). They then went on a rampage of rioting through the centre of the city.

Thousands of Luo tribesmen chanted and wept around Mr Mboya's coffin as it lay in state in the Roman Catholic cathedral of Homa Bay yesterday (10 July). On the way there in Wednesday (9 July) the funeral procession had to be turned back from its planned route through the Luo stronghold of Kisumu. There was rioting as the police tried to clear a path for the hearse, and tear gas was used.

Six hundred men of the para-military police General Service Unit have been sent to Homa Bay in anticipation of further trouble.

The deep throb of drums was heard all over Rusinga Island as the body was ferried across from the mainland. Thousands of Luo tribesmen, armed with spears and shields, and their bodies, waded waist deep into water to claim it.

The vast lake was dotted with hundreds of canoes and other small craft bringing thousands of mourners from the mainland to the island. It is expected that more than 50,000 people will gather there today (11 July).

As the search for My Mboya's killer continues, police announced yesterday (10 July) that they had detained a man for questioning in connection with the assassination. They said that they had made no arrests and that the man was merely helping in their inquires. Meanwhile, a reward of GBP11,600 may be offered by the police for information leading to the arrest of the killer.