Gunmen at Baringo county kill 5 as tension arises among with villagers who are calling for more attention in the area to tame the ongoing attacks.
Two people were Tuesday evening shot dead by armed bandits at Yatya area in Baringo North Sub-County.
Locals and police said the armed assailants ambushed the middle-aged men and opened gunfire indiscriminately, killing them on the spot.
The incident sparked tension and fears in the area forcing locals to flee amid reports that armed bandits are taking hostage the village. This came hours after the same gang had killed three people in Chemoe area.
Police said the gang targeted a man, his wife and a child as they were headed to an event in Chemoe area, spraying bullets at them. Police reported that the family died on the spot while the gun men escaped the scene.
The incident was the latest in the region amid operations to address the menace. The area is among those still under curfew amid but gunmen defy the curfew and stage attacks for livestock.
On January 5, at least three people were shot dead by bandits while on a mission to receive four stolen goats at Kerio River in Marakwet County.
Police said the three including a 61-year-old man, a 43-year-old man and a teacher at Kombases Primary School aged 32 years, were all members of the Endo Peace Committee operating in the area.
The bodies of the three were recovered by a multi-agency team comprising General Service Unit Tot, Anti Stock Theft Unit (ASTU) Chesongoch and officers from Mogil Police Station after a missing report was filed.
According to police, information was received from a member of the public, that his colleagues who had gone to Kerio River to receive four goats from Pokot herders which had been stolen earlier were not reachable over mobiles and that gunshots would be heard around Kerio River.
A multi-agency team comprising of GSU Tot, ASTU Chesongoch and Officers from Mogil Police Station dispatched a joint patrol along Murukutwo-Kerio road and upon reaching approximately a kilometer to Kerio River, three lifeless bodies which were positively identified were recovered.
The police say that upon encountering the bodies, a motorcycle belonging to one of the deceased was recovered at the scene.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has been leading the operations in the area vowing to end the menace.
Kindiki said cattle rustling in Northern Kenya has over the years become an organized criminal enterprise responsible for deaths, destitution and displacement.
“Its impacts are severe. It deprives pastoral communities their economic mainstay and aggravates the conditions of poverty in the rangelands, fueling communal grievances and revenge attacks,” said the Interior and Administration of National Government boss.
To dismantle the infrastructure of cattle rustlers and facilitators he said, the government is sustaining the war on banditry and its perpetrators, enablers, benefactors and beneficiaries by making banditry a painful venture, ensuring recovery of stolen livestock and rewarding facilitators of recoveries.
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