Clashes kill 24 people in central Kenya: police

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Clashes between residents and members of an outlawed criminal gang erupted in central Kenya overnight, killing 24 people, police said on Tuesday.

The Mungiki gang, notorious for beheading and mutilating victims, is Kenya's version of the mafia and is involved in extortion and racketeering rings, protection fees, kidnapping and murder, police say.

"So far investigators have confirmed that 24 people have been killed and three have been seriously injured," the police said in a statement.

Police added that the clashes started when Mungiki members tried to force people from Kirinyaga district out of Karatina, a town in the Nyeri West district of tea- and coffee-producing central Kenya, some 100 km (62 miles) from the capital Nairobi.

Police arrested 37 people and recovered axes, machetes and other weapons.

The Mungiki is drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest ethnic group and has links to politicians and powerful Kikuyu families. Two years ago, police allegedly killed hundreds of its members in a crackdown in Kenya's capital.

The gang's size is unknown but it claims thousands of members, predominantly unemployed youths, some of whose communities were destroyed in tribal clashes in the 1990s.