A teenager who worked with HIV and AIDS orphans in Kenya has spoken of her horror at the country's descent into near anarchy.

Student Alison Fabian said rioting mobs had destroyed the Heshima children's centre and forced its founders, Alison and Steve Rogers, to flee for their lives.

Alison, 17, of Downside Avenue, Findon Valley, Worthing, said: "I am very sad that the place is just gone in the blink of an eye."

She is now praying for the safety of the Rogers', who have been keeping people up to date with a harrowing online diary.

Alison travelled last summer to Kenya with a party of girl guides from London and the south east, and during their three week "experience of a lifetime" met British teacher Alison and her Kenyan husband Steve.

The Rogers' had opened the children's centre, near Lake Victoria, where youngsters infected with HIV and AIDs were cared for.

Alison, who raised £2,500 to fund the trip, said: "We sang songs, did cutting and pasting, read stories, and also fed up to 100 children each day.

"Heshima was such a lovely, calm place, and in the evenings we used to sit by Lake Victoria and watch the sun set, although we had to be careful of the hippos."

But the peaceful idyll was shattered when rioting erupted after disputed elections and hundreds of people were butchered by machete-wielding gangs split along tribal lines.

Alison, a former student of Durrington High School, Worthing, who is now studying child care at Chichester College, said there was no hint of the bloodshed to come.

Steve was especially vulnerable because he was a member of a tribe being singled out by machete gangs.

Despite the horror, Alison, who sings in the choir of All Saints Church, Findon Valley, where she also helps with the 1st and 2nd Findon Valley brownies, said: "If Alison and Steve wanted to set up there again I would be happy to go out and help them."