Looters attack Kenyan tea estates

Looters in one of Kenya's major tea-growing areas have struck Unilever's Chebown tea estate in a bout of post-election violence, causing workers at it and all the surrounding farms to flee.

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Fighters torched the farm's tractors and trucks, looted and burned its storage facility and tried to burn the tea plants, but were foiled by cold, moist weather.

In the week since Mwai Kibaki was declared victor in the country's elections, Kenya's tea estates have become fields of death as supporters of defeated challenger Raila Odinga exacted revenge on the president's Kikuyu people.

Managers at the Unilever estate said gangs of up to 600 youths armed with bows and arrows, machetes and axes had attacked in waves, killing and pillaging as they went.

Unilever executives said at least 14 people had been killed on the company's plantations, including a man shot dead by the police. The situation on plantations owned by other companies was unclear. Tea companies have begun evacuating some 30,000 displaced people in lorries and trailers attached to tractors.

More than 60 British firms - including Barclays, Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline - have operations in Kenya. Unilever owns two tea plantations and employs several thousand Kenyans. Kenya is the world's third-largest exporter of tea, which, together with coffee and horticultural products, contributes to about 55pc of exports.