One million people are expected to take to the streets of Kenya Thursday to protest the country's ruling government and the spate of inter-ethnic violence that erupted following the results of a hotly contested election.

Kenya's leaders also faced intensified pressure from the international community to defuse the violence that has gripped the country, as the death toll from riots following the election results rose to more than 300.

Opposition Leader Raila Odinga asked for international assistance to help stop the brutality among the country's clashing tribes.

"What is happening is genocide on a grand scale," he said.

Canada should get involved in trying to settle the situation, said Bob Rae, the Liberal Party's foreign affairs critic.

"I don't know why Canada would be remaining silent for so long," he said. "We should be working with the commonwealth and with other interested governments to make sure that the parties are sitting down."

Escalating death toll

On Tuesday, rioters in Eldoret burned a church where about 100 people were trying to escape the violence. At least 30 people were killed as machete-wielding mobs attacked ethnic Kikuyus who tried to escape.

The people taking refuge in the church were of the same Kikuyu tribe as newly-elected President Mwai Kibaki, who narrowly defeated challenger Raila Odinga amid accusations among both sides of election rigging.

CNN correspondent Paula Newton told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday that the scene was shocking.

"Unfortunately, these people thought they were safe in the church and they were not. It was torched and we heard overnight that they are counting at least 17 more bodies in more sporadic violence in the West," she reported from Nairobi.

The death toll from four days of fighting has passed 300, rights groups said. Newton said such ethnic violence has not been seen in the normally stable Kenya in decades. She said the violence has exposed long-simmering tribal tensions and sparked fears that ethnic conflicts are deepening.

"If they have more explosive situations continue -- and certainly the language on both sides has not been conciliatory -- there is fear that this will degenerate into an all-out civil war," Newton said.

That fear was echoed by an aid worker working in the region.

"The word I hear more than any other word....is Rwanda," said Ellen Petry Leanse. "They feel that fear of tribe turning against tribe."

However, Stephen Brown, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa, told CTV News what is happening in Kenya is not genocide but rather politically-motivated violence.

"The fact that this happened right after the election shows that it's primarily political violence," he said. "And then the third factor that comes into this is hooliganism."

He told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday that political parties within Kenya usually break down along ethnic lines or regional groups.

"In the 1990s there were a number of ethnic clashes that killed several thousand people and displaced hundreds of thousands, and this too was related to elections," he said.

About 5,400 people also have fled to neighboring Uganda, Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister said. And officials in neighbouring Tanzania estimate several hundred people have fled to their country to escape the chaos.

At least 70,000 people have been displaced, the United Nations said, citing Kenyan police.

Much of Kenya's capital city of Nairobi was quiet and deserted on Wednesday. However, violence continued in the city's massive Mathare slum.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the violence had affected only about three per cent of the country's 34 million people.

"Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," he said.

International pressure

Despite the allegations of election fraud over unexplained delays in ballot counting and a suspicious 115 per cent voter turnout in one constituency, Kibaki has been sworn in for a second five-year term as president.

"There still continues to be political deadlock here, the government refusing to give an inch, saying they did win the election and saying if the opposition wants to petition, they can petition to the high court," Newton said.

"The opposition is saying 'We don't trust the courts.' They (the courts) are aligned with the president and saying they will not negotiate until the president agrees to step down."

The United States and the European Union have both refused to offer their congratulations to Kibaki and four top Kenyan election officials have called for an independent probe into election results.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband issued a joint statement saying there were "independent reports of serious irregularities in the counting process."

The pair called on Kenya's leaders to compromise and put the country's democratic interests first.

"The immediate priority is to combine a sustained call from Kenya's political leaders for the cessation of violence by their followers with an intensive political and legal process that can build a united and peaceful future for Kenya," the statement said.

Rice and Miliband welcomed news that Ghanaian President John Kufuor would be sent by the African Union to mediate the situation.

The AU's spokeswoman Habiba Mejri-Cheikh said Kufuor was expected to arrive in Kenya on Wednesday, but Kufuor's press office said the leader had cancelled the visit. The press office gave no explanation for the cancellation.

Brown called the U.S. reaction to the elections and ensuing chaos "very weak," adding that the U.S. is more concerned with stability rather than democracy.

"They've always favoured a stable status quo over any kind of change in countries like Kenya. Historically, they've been apologists for stolen elections in Kenya before in 1992 and 1997," he said.

"They've got very strong security interests in Kenya; Kenya is right next to Somalia."

Meanwhile, Odinga insisted he would proceed with plans to lead 1 million people in a protest march on Thursday, despite the government's call to ban the demonstration.

With files from The Associated Press