Roundup: Tension high in northern Kenya after murder of 5
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E-mail Xinhua, August 20, 2012
Roundup: Tension high in northern Kenya after murder of 5
By Stephen Ingati and Fabian Mangera
MANDERA, Kenya, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Tension is high in Banisa district of Mandera of northern Kenya after five people were killed and three others seriously injured early on Monday by members from a rival clan.
Regional police commander Philip Tuimur said the five from the Degodia clan that hails from Mandera County were shot dead by their rivals from the Garre clan in Sericho village a few km from Malkari near the Kenya-Ethiopia.
The attackers were said to have also made away with 70 head of cattle and several goats and sheep.
"It is unfortunate that five innocent individuals had to loose their lives just like through inter-clan conflicts. We will make sure that we get those behind this very heinous act," Tuimur told Xinhua on Monday.
The regional police commander said that they were pursuing the attackers who are believed to be locals.
According to a source who spoke to Xinhua on phone, the attackers who were numbering 30 attacked the village at around 8: 00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and went ahead with their mission "which was to kill and escape with the animals."
"They ambushed us unawares. In what looked like a well executed mission, they went ahead and shot dead five people and seriously injured three others with gun wounds and comfortably left with the animals by the time the police arrived it was late," said one of the local residents.
Tuimur said that security had been intensified in the area in a bid to stop more blood shed.
"The government had deployed more officers, the GSU, regular and administration in the area, we are also involving the rural patrol unit to try and arrest those behind this heinous act and also try and get back the animals that were stolen," he said.
Following the clashes, tension is high in the area with scores of families, fearing more killings moving to areas where their clans are a majority.
The clans whose animosity stems from the 2007 general election where the Garre clan lost the Mandera central seat to a Dogodia. The number of those who have been killed since the clashes erupted has now risen to 11.
Provincial administrator Ernest Munyi toured the affected areas three weeks ago in a bid to bring sanity a move which have so far not yielded any fruit.
Acting Internal Security Minister Yusuf Haji also called on the two rival clans to end the clashes.
Munyi said security forces have been deployed to the restive area to crackdown on the attackers, which intelligence sources say may have crossed into neighboring Ethiopia.
"We will pursue the attackers whom we believe have crossed into Ethiopia until we arrest them. We will also ensure that all stolen cattle are recovered," Munyi pledged.
Garre and Degodia clans, who have co-existed in Mandera and Wajir counties for years harmoniously, have turned bitter foes after the former clan lost its traditional Mandera central constituency to the later in the 2007 election,
Garre, who are majority in the constituency, lost the seat to Abdikhadir Mohamed, a Degodia, after Garre votes were divided among over four candidates contesting.
The animosity boiled into full clashes on Aug. 1 after two secondary school boys returning from a weekend excursion at their homes in Banisa to Rhamu were accosted, killed and the motorbike they were travelling stolen at Guba just two km from Banisa town.
This led to a revenge killing of two people in Banisa in the following day. Scores of families gripped by panic of the inter- clan killings have moved to the areas where the clans are majority creating divisions of settlements on clan bases.
General elections in the East African nation frequently spark violence. The next vote is set for March 4, 2013.
The locals say relative calm has resumed in the area although more families who had fled the resource-linked conflict between the Gabra and Borana pastoralist communities have not returned.
Clashes between the rival cattle herding pastoralists in the region are common, with herders often carrying guns to protect their animals, but the recent fighting has been unusually heavy. Enditem
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