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EXP-KENYA-DISPLACE-NY 04-05 Web Web

Displaced children live in limbo

Clinton Masheti, 8 years old and all alone, sits on a wooden bench rolling snakes out of clay. When the men came and started burning down houses in his village, his parents ran away — without him.

He now lives in the Nairobi Children’s Home, a place with cheery paintings on the wall and lots of blank little faces. He is among thousands of children lost or abandoned during the fighting that followed Kenya’s disputed election in December.

"My father was a farmer," he said. That seemed to be all he knew.

More than 300,000 people remain homeless, living in camps or staying temporarily with relatives, but top politicians have been preoccupied with haggling over cabinet posts and forming a coalition government.

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Officials recently announced that the new government would include 40 ministries, a Kenyan record, and many people fear that the money for salaries, cars and staff for the bloated Cabinet will eat into what the displaced people need.

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