This has happened before: What does it take to stop?
The story below is all too familiar: cattle theft by armed “bandits” with the tacit support of the police, to be loaded into waiting trucks. A culture of official corruption and the willingness to set one tribe (the Somali Borana) against another, the Samburu pastoralists, leads to more loss of lives and livestock.
I received this story forwarded from Kenya:
Sunday, August 9th: YET ANOTHER MASSIVE ATTACK AGAINST SAMBURU. THIS IS THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY IN KENYA THAT HILLARY AND BARACK HAVE PROMISED KENYANS TO HELP END
An attack on the Samburu people by over 300 uniformed individuals occurred at daybreak on Sunday, Aug 9, 2009, immediately following the Saturday livestock market in Archers Post just as people were about to return home. The attack occurred on the Ewaso River at the Nashamuni area, the same site of the original Feb 17 raid in which 2 Samburu children were kidnapped and 300 cattle stolen.
Moran [Samburu men aged 15-30 whose role is to protect the tribe] immediately notified community members that they needed help when the armed gunmen began shooting, wounding 2 Samburu and killing the 2 young moran, Lenayasa and Lakaguili.
No police responded, although the site of attack was very near the Archers Post Police office.
Moran followed their cattle and by 7 PM people were radioed that the cows were at the Kashuru area near Mt Meru, a Somali area. The cattle were then picked up at this location by 10 lorries. Again, no police responded to repeated calls for help. The moran tried to get plate identification numbers but the vehicles were too far away and one group of attackers blocked their approach.
Because the attackers, over 300 in number, were in uniform, no one is sure who these bandits were – [police] officers or Borana/ Somali in uniform.
Oddly, the Kenya Army held exercises all day yesterday for Operation Walk and Shoot, where t-shirts were hidden in thick thorn brush and troops were required to ferret them out. Samburu communities between Archers Post and Wamba speculated about the purpose of the exercise throughout the day.
update:
More details on yesterday’s attacks:
From a witness, collaborated by 6 others independent witnesses.
Buffalo Springs rangers met the moran and their cattle just outside the [wildlife] park boundaries minutes before the shootings and asked them to graze a little further from the park boundary – they were about 1000 feet away. They very politely said ‘no problem’ and began moving away.
As the 4 guards walked away, but were still within earshot, one made a call and the attackers immediately moved in, uniformed, killing 2 boys, wounding 3 others, and taking the cattle. The moran feel they were assessing how many moran were present before the moving in to attack them. All 4 [park] guards were Borana.
There was a 3rd person injured, not reported yesterday, who was transferred from Archers Post Hospital to Wamba Hospital today due to extensive injuries.
