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Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan says "gross and systematic" human rights abuses have occurred in western Kenya, where dozens of people have been killed in recent days.

The ethnic clashes are the latest in post-election violence that has left nearly 700 people dead across the country.

Mr. Annan visited the Rift Valley town of Molo Saturday, where tens of thousands of people have been displaced in a recent wave of fighting.

The former U.N. head is in Kenya to negotiate an agreement between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. Mr. Annan mediated direct talks between the men in Nairobi Friday, the first time the two met since the disputed December elections.

Both sides later accused the other of trying to undermine the mediation effort.

Odinga's accusations that Mr. Kibaki rigged the vote to ensure his re-election sparked the tribal warfare between members of the president's Kikuyu tribe against other groups, including Luo and Kalenjin, who support Mr. Odinga.

In the nearby town of Nakuru, the death toll from two days of fighting now stands at 25. Authorities unloaded the badly burned bodies of 16 people at Nakuru's mortuary earlier Saturday.

Many residents sought shelter in churches after fighting Thursday and Friday among youths armed with clubs, machetes, and bows and arrows. Police say it is difficult to say how many were injured. Many homes were burned.

Two top Kenyan human rights activists have appealed to the U.N. Security Council to do something about the violence, which has also displaced about 255,000 people.

The United Nations Children's Fund reported Friday that sexual violence against women and children in Kenya has increased during the post-election unrest.

The agency says much of the violence has occurred in make-shift camps housing people displaced by the unrest.

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