Kenya is still feeling the aftermath of the wave of violence that claimed at least 1 200 lives and displaced an estimated 350 000 people, mostly women and children, following the controversial results of elections last December, a Unicef official has said.

In an interview with Mmegi, Unicef communication adviser for East and Southern Africa, Patricia Lone, said situations of internal conflict filtered through to children, "especially when neighbour turns against neighbour as happened in Kenya."

Lone said such situations had a drastic effect on children who were traumatised to see people they had trusted turn against them.

As is the norm, the United Nations responded by supplying blankets, digging pit latrines, repairing existing boreholes and immunising children, among other measures.

Lone said the aftermaths of the Kenyan election violence were still there because the turmoil had broken out in the rain season, causing people to abandon their fields untilled and unploughed as they ran or attempted to run for their lives.

"There is a serious shortage of food which is made worse by the current world food crisis in which prices of even staple grains are rising," she said.