Thousands turn out for funeral of Kenyan opposition leader after deadly week

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BONDO, Kenya (Reuters) -Thousands of mourners, relatives and dignitaries paid their final respects to Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Sunday as he was laid to rest close to his farm in Bondo near Lake Victoria in western Kenya.

Sunday’s Anglican service and burial took place without major incident after an outpouring of national grief this week, in which at least five people were killed and hundreds injured when surging crowds eager for a glimpse of his body overwhelmed authorities.

“Now finally Baba is home,” said his son and namesake, Raila junior, as his father’s casket, draped in the Kenyan flag, stood under a marquee. Odinga senior had died on Wednesday aged 80 in India where he was receiving medical treatment.

CHAMPION OF PEACE

Odinga was widely referred to as “Baba” or “father” in the Swahili language. After the main service at a local university, the funeral cortege headed to a private interment with a military band gun salute.

In a message on social media platform X, former U.S. President Barack Obama praised Odinga as a champion of peace who placed his country’s interests ahead of personal ambitions.

“Like few other leaders anywhere, he was willing to choose the path of peaceful reconciliation without compromising his core values,” Obama said.

Tributes also came from current Kenyan President William Ruto, as well as former Kenyan and Nigerian presidents, Uhuru Kenyatta and Olusegun Obasanjo, who were at the service in Bondo.

Though mainly known as an opposition figure, Odinga became prime minister in 2008 and struck political pacts with Kenyatta in 2018, and with Ruto last year, in a career of shifting alliances. He was once imprisoned for treason and ran unsuccessfully for president five times.

SEVERAL KILLED, MANY INJURED

Back from India on home soil, the first public viewing of his body on Thursday turned deadly when officers opened fire to disperse crowds after they breached a stadium gate.

On Friday, another two people were killed and more than 160 others injured at the state funeral in capital Nairobi, while dozens of mourners were injured on Saturday after his body was flown to the city of Kisumu, the political heartland of his Luo tribe.

“I’m feeling so low having lost him and this feels like a bad dream … I still can’t believe Baba is gone,” Ainea Opilu, a 25-year-old tutor, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Vincent Mumo in Nairobi; Writing by Ammu Kannampilly, Portia Crowe and Wendell Roelf; editing by David Holmes)