In the burnt-out market place, a youth appears swinging a machete, its blade glinting in the late afternoon sun.

Men brandishing sticks and clubs run down the street towards him as children scurry into a side alley. The youth vanishes, his brief appearance a chilling reminder of the menace that stalks this town in Kenya?s Rift Valley. At least seven people have been hacked or clubbed to death in Narok, the gateway to Kenya?s famed Masai Mara Game Reserve, during attacks involving Maasai tribesmen in recent days.

?The men are staying outside to guard, some are even sleeping outside,? said Sammy Kulumwa, a 43-year old businessman in a suit jacket and felt hat, a stick in his hand. ?You just tell your women and children to stay at home, to stay inside.?

This provincial town of low-rise buildings among acacia trees and scrubland would normally be full of tourists being ferried between the capital Nairobi and the Masai Mara.

But a political crisis triggered by President Mwai Kibaki?s disputed re-election on Dec. 27 has unlocked ethnic bloodletting here which the security forces are struggling to contain.

Six of the seven bodies lying sliced and beaten in Narok?s morgue were victims of fighting on Friday, when witnesses said several hundred Maasai tribesmen attacked the Majengo neighbourhood with machetes, spears and arrows.

?All of a sudden a spear hit my leg. As I tried to escape they caught hold of me,? said Zachary Kamau, 19, from his hospital bed. Scars criss-crossed his head, his ears were stitched and his right arm was wrapped in a bloodied bandage. ?They hit me with clubs, they used a knife too to stab me.?

Neighbour against neighbour

Around a quarter of a million people have been forced from their homes by ethnic violence in Kenya since the elections, the bulk of them in the Rift Valley, a stronghold of opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Attacks in the Rift Valley have often targeted people seen to support Kibaki, mostly from his Kikuyu tribe and the Kisii ethnic group, but there have also been vicious reprisals.

?I was beaten by a mob at my house. They said I supported Raila Odinga ... Two of them were my neighbours I?ve known for about 10 years,? said Joshua Owino, 45, gashes to his neck and face, his back so badly bruised he could hardly move.

Opposition supporters killed five people in a refugee camp in the Rift Valley village of Kipkelion, 180 km northwest of Nairobi, on Saturday, police said.

Politics may have triggered the violence, but deeper ethnic rivalries and disputes over land have started to take over.

Behind the police station across town, some 800 displaced men, women and children are sheltering in white plastic tents after fleeing their settlements around Narok because of attacks by the Maasai tribesmen from whom they rent their farming land.

?They started attacking and burning our homes. We hire their land but they came back to beat us and destroy everything,? said Lucy Tati, 42, one of her five children wrapped on her back.

As dusk fell over Narok?s Majengo neighbourhood, where many Kikuyus live, small groups of men gathered on otherwise quiet streets fearing the Maasai attackers may return. ?Those guys are camped out there somewhere eating cow?s meat,? Kulumwa said. ?You never know when they could come.?

Nick TATTERSALL