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Kenya hunts killers in violent north, 75 dead
Hundreds of Kenyan security personnel in armored cars and helicopters pursued bandits on Thursday in a lawless northern region where at least 75 people have died in a cycle of grisly revenge killings this week.Police said 26 children were among those shot and hacked to death in one massive attack and several reprisal strikes in the Marsabit district just south of the Ethiopian border. "The security operation will continue until peace is restored," Kenyan police said in a statement. "We appeal to the affected people to remain calm and discard the temptation to avenge the attack as the security forces pursue the attackers." The latest flare-up in a remote region known for violent clashes and with little representation from central government began when some 400 cattle-rustlers killed about 50 ethnic Gabra villagers in Dida Galgalu early on Tuesday. Members of the Gabra clan responded by attacking a truck full of rival Borana, whom they accused of the initial massacre. A further two Boranas were killed Thursday morning in another reprisal by the Gabras, police said. Local police officer Robert Kirui told Reuters his men were also checking unconfirmed reports three Borana women were killed in Marsabit Forest on Wednesday night fetching firewood. And there were also unconfirmed reports five Kenyans from a local non-governmental organization, Farm Africa, were missing and presumed killed. Amid all the confused versions from the area, police said the definite, confirmed death toll was 75 -- 56 Gabras including 22 children; nine Boranas including four children; and 10 bandits responsible for Tuesday's large-scale attack. Scores more have been injured in the clashes. Police and army units were using trucks and three helicopters to pursue the Borana raiders believed linked to Ethiopia's Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) rebel movement. GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF NEGLECT Violence in Kenya's arid east and north is frequent as clans fight for scant resources, and livestock raids over the borders with Ethiopia and Somalia are frequent. "When you have the environment degraded, it is always so that we are going to fight over the few resources that are left," Kenya's 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner and deputy environment minister Wangari Maathai told Reuters. She said the remote northeastern region's environmental needs had been long neglected: "If they had resources they would not be killing each other over grazing ground and water." People in the area said the situation was tense, with terrified inhabitants flooding the roads away from the affected region, and transport to Marsabit virtually stopped. "It will take long before calm returns," Hilary Halkano, of the Marsabit Catholic Diocese, told Reuters by phone. The Kenyan Red Cross (KRC) was sending emergency supplies and a medical team to attend the wounded. Local media united in outrage at what the Daily Nation called "Kenya's killing fields." Another daily, The Standard, berated the government for historically neglecting the region and not bothering to send any high-level officials after Tuesday's massacre. The attackers "seem to have hived off one part of the country in which they continue to perpetrate anarchy as the government sits on its hands and treats insecurity in this border district with condemnable levity." Posted by: Spavirt Pheng6042 2005-07-14 |
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