By DAVID WILLIAMS

Last updated at 21:23 03 January 2008

British tour operators suspended holidays to Kenya yesterday as fresh violence flared in the heart of the capital Nairobi.

Anti-government protesters defied riot police who were using tear gas and water cannons and taunted them with cries of "Kill us all".

At one stage police fired live rounds over the heads of supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga in the city's slum areas.

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A rally to protest at the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki was called off "to save lives" but rescheduled for tomorrow, providing another potential flashpoint.

Kenya's Attorney General Amos Wako pleaded for an independent investigation into the election as the US and the EU called on the increasingly beleaguered Kibaki to create a coalition government.

But with bodies, including those of women and children, piling up in hospitals and drunken youths wielding machetes at blazing roadblocks, the chances of an early settlement appeared remote.

The decision by the Federation of Tour Operators to suspend Kenyan holidays until tomorrow will affect hundreds of UK tourists due to fly out for sand-and-safari breaks on the Equator.

Those involved, including travellers due to fly from Gatwick to Mombasa today on a First Choice Holidays break, have been offered alternatives or a full refund.

About 6,000 Britons - including 3,000 on package holidays - are currently on trips in Kenya, where more than 300 people have died.

Both British Airways and Virgin flights were continuing and stopovers will not be affected.

The Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to the strife-torn East African country and the suspension comes as the peak season for British tourism to Kenya approaches.

Thousands of holidaymakers, mainly couples, are fleeing the dark and cold of a British winter to visit some of the world's top game parks and relax at luxury beach resorts.

Refunds will cost UK tour operators many thousands of pounds while any lengthy suspension of package tours will have serious implications for the Kenyan economy, which receives £400million a year from tourism, the country's biggest earner.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu flew into Nairobi to try to mediate in the crisis.

"This is a country that has been held up as a model of stability," he said.

"This picture has been shattered."

The Nobel peace laureate added: "I don't think there is anybody who would be unmoved by the pictures that are coming out - of people who burned to death in a church.

"This is not the Kenya that we know."

As he prepared to meet Tutu, Odinga called Kibaki a "thief" who had carried out "a civilian coup".

He said he would be prepared to accept international mediation and proposed setting up an interim powersharing government to prepare for a re-run of the vote.

"The people will not take this vote-rigging by the government lying down," he said.

Earlier, Odinga toured a dozen freezing rooms at Nairobi's City Mortuary, full of the bodies of babies, children, young men and women.

Some bodies were burned but many did not have visible wounds.

"What we have just seen defies description," Odinga said.

"We can only describe it as genocide on a grand scale."

In Nairobi, thousands poured out of the pro-opposition Kibera slum and other shanty towns after dawn to head for Freedom Park, for the planned million-strong rally that Kibaki's government had banned.

Police marched on them using teargas and water cannon.

They also fired in the air as the crowd kneeled, shouting "Kill us all".

Opposition spokesman Salam Lone said there will be a mass rally of thousands of supporters in a central Nairobi park today.

"The rally is on," he said.

Further protest could damage the chances of peace.

Last night President Kibaki softened his stance by saying: "I am ready to have dialogue with the concerned parties once the nation is calm."