A MOB set fire to a church in western Kenya today, killing up to 50 villagers sheltering inside as post-election violence swept the east African country.

Tribal clashes have rocked Kenya since President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election on Sunday.

At least 180 people have died nationwide and the death toll looked sure to rise.

Witnesses said charred bodies, including many of women and children, were strewn about the smouldering wreckage of the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal church near Eldoret town.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said they could not yet give a definite death toll.

"This is the first time in history that any group has attacked a church. We never expected the savagery to go so far," he told a news conference in the capital Nairobi.

Reinforcements were being rushed to the area to arrest all troublemakers "regardless of their status in society", he said.

"Our officers are exercising a lot of restraint in maintaining the law. This restraint will not last forever."

Residents and a security source said about 200 people had been seeking refuge at the church.

The victims were mostly Kikuyus from Kibaki's ethnic group who fled homes in the area in fear of their lives.

The area is multi-ethnic but traditionally dominated by the Kalenjin tribe.

It suffered ethnic violence in 1992 and 1997 when hundreds of people - mainly Kikuyus - were killed and thousands more displaced in land clashes.

A Catholic priest said security had deteriorated fast since Sunday, with thousands of terrified, mainly Kikuyu, refugees now taking shelter in churches in and around Eldoret as vigilante gangs roamed outside.

"There are four to five thousand in the main Cathedral, and thousands in other churches," Father Paul Brennan, an Irishman, said.

"Houses are being burned. It is too dangerous to go outside and count the dead."

A senior security official in Rift Valley confirmed a mob had burned down the church. He said as many as 15,000 people were sheltering at churches and police stations in Eldoret.

He blamed the opposition for incitement.

"We have lived together for years, we've intermarried, we have children, but now they've asked them to turn against them," the security official said.

"We don't do this in Kenya. It is what happens in Yugoslavia and Sudan."

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