By Andrew Cawthorne

NAIROBI, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Mourners who attended a mass funeral on Wednesday for victims of Kenya's post-election violence found themselves running from teargas as it ended, in yet another dark moment for the east African nation.

Emotions ran high from early morning as coffins were carried and driven from a Nairobi mortuary to the nearby "Ligi Ndogo" (Little League) children's football fields.

The cheap wooden caskets were laid out on tables, some with tops open to show the bodies of mainly young people dressed, in death, in their Sunday best.

Relatives and organisers from the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) said the 28 victims being honoured were all residents of Nairobi's Kibera slum, all shot by police during recent protests against Kibaki's re-election.

"Jacob was the bread-winner for his entire family. How will they survive without him?" said grief-stricken Francis Adhiambo, 41, uncle of electrician Jacob Omondi, 24.

Standing in a solemn family circle next to the coffin, Adhiambo said his nephew had stayed inside his shack during street battles in Kibera on Friday and was lying on his bed when police burst in and shot him in the chest.

"They let me carry him out and I took him to hospital. But in my car I saw him take his final breath," he said. "He was a polite boy, he has never thrown a stone in his life. The police came looking for revenge, they came to kill."

Other families told similar stories, some saying youths were shot in the back from hundreds of metres, others telling of children as young as four struck down by gunfire.

Kenyan security forces strongly deny killing innocent or peaceful protesters, saying they have opened fire only when attacked. Kibaki's government accuses opposition leader Raila Odinga of deliberately stirring up violence as a tactic.

"KIBAKI MUST GO!"

Odinga says Kibaki stole the presidency by vote fraud.

Underlining Kenya's class divisions, politicians rolled up in four-wheel-drive vehicles, chatting on mobile phones and greeting each other with smiles before taking seats under an awning, while families and other mourners stood in the hot sun.

Some women beat coffins, wailing in pain.

The crowd sang "Kibaki must go!", waved branches and held up slogans like "Kibaki and Museveni are killers," a reference to Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni, who has endorsed Kibaki's win.

Even as Odinga and other top ODM leaders were making speeches next to the coffins, some young supporters began taunting and throwing stones at police outside.

A row of riot police moved forward and scores more youths surged out of the funeral and into the fray. Some tore up road signs and laid branches across the road.

Riot police charged them and fired teargas.

As Odinga finished his speech inside and the crowd began singing a liberation song in Swahili several canisters of teargas landed in the field, sparking panic and a mass exit.

"This clique who want power at all costs has unleashed terror on the people," Odinga had told the crowd. "But the blood of these innocent people will nurture the tree of freedom."

As the event degenerated, youths smashed several cars and a row of telephone kiosks outside the fields. They turned on a post office, setting it alight and breaking windows.

"When we say 'No Raila, No Peace', we mean it!" said one youth, brandishing a stick in one hand, a rock in the other.

"You watch: Kenya will be like Somalia, Sudan and Iraq." (Editing by Tim Cocks and Tim Pearce)

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