NAIROBI, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday it had given $50,000 to one of Nairobi's largest slums to help resettle families displaced after five days of violence between rival gangs that killed at least eight people.

Last week's fighting between club and machete wielding gangs at Mathare slum -- which houses some 400,000 Kenyans in a valley in northeast Nairobi -- was attributed to a dispute over trade in the illicit backstreet brew chang'aa.

Calm had returned on Thursday after a heavy police presence but many people were still homeless.

Nairobi-based U.N. Human Settlements Programme Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka, who visited the area, announced the donation and urged calm.

"I plead with you to bury your differences and forge ahead in peace," she told residents.

The Mathare Youth Sports Association, a community organization, will oversee the disbursement of the money.

Some residents who had been displaced were seen moving back into the slum. Others said they had been forced to sleep in the cold.

"Three-hundred families lost their houses and belongings," Jared Ogada, a community representative, said. "We lack food and shelter. ... The area is unfit for human habitation."

One boy told Reuters he had come home from school last week to find his father dead.

"I saw my father's body cut into pieces," 13-year-old Robert Ruheni said.

Roughly half of Nairobi's 3.5 million inhabitants live in slums, where gangs often rule and police seldom enter except to tackle major riots. Rights groups say authorities neglect places like Mathare, only responding when major crises erupt.

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