By Nick Tattersall

NAIROBI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Pastor Isaac Mujete was talking with women and children from his church in Kenya's biggest slum on Thursday when police opened fire, spraying bullets as residents ran for cover among the tin-roofed shacks.

One round grazed his arm, tearing his shirtsleeve before ripping into the lower back of another pastor, Francis Ivayo, as the two churchmen tried to protect children in Nairobi's Kibera shanty town, home to up to a million people.

"When they came they just started shooting any old how. They could not reason with anyone. They told us we can do anything to you, even shoot you, we don't care," Mujete said from Ivayo's bedside after bringing him to the nearby Masaba Hospital.

"Young kids were there, we could not just run away. These were members of our church. We were trying to safeguard young children," he said.

As he spoke, one of two other young men brought in with Ivayo died in the next room from a gunshot wound to the neck.

"He was shot at close range. He was shot through the front of the neck. He was facing whoever shot him," said resident surgeon Dr Eric Ataya.

More than 600 people have died in Kenya, long east Africa's most stable and promising economy, during protests in the past three weeks against President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election. Many have died at the hands of the security forces.

In the muddy streets of Kibera, a sprawling warren of wooden shacks, frustration at Kibaki's alleged stealing of the vote is giving way to anger at the tactics used by the security forces.

"MOB PSYCHOLOGY"

Even those who say they are not involved in political protests complain of police brutality.

"We want to protect our property and our families," said Mohamed Ahmed Tubi, a Kibera resident in his 50s, as neighbours mended a door behind him on a wood and tin shack bearing the tongue-in-cheek name "Marriot Hotel".

"Our problem is the policeman, they come and loot. You can see they broke some of these doors a few moments ago," he said as the crackle of gunfire rang out down the street.

Behind him, a woman in brightly coloured clothes wailed loudly, tears pouring from her eyes as neighbours tried to comfort her. Residents said her husband had been shot on a nearby railway line where police were trying to control looters.

"We are dealing with mob psychology ... The Kenyan police are acting within the laws of this country," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told a news conference earlier on Thursday.

The government says it is within its rights to prevent demonstrations during times of political crisis. Local rights groups and western nations including the United States and Britain have called for the ban to be lifted.

Pastor Mujete said there was no political protest going on in the immediate area of Kibera where he and his colleague were shot and said that the police had opened fire unannounced.

Whatever the political outcome of Kenya's unrest, the brutality seen in its slums is likely to leave long-lasting resentment.

"When you speak to the international community, tell them we do not need food, we need guns," said Thomas Kepha, 26, an unemployed Kibera resident. (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jon Boyle)

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