Security beefed up in Samburu, Isiolo following attacks
Maralal OCS Johnston Kitila Musyoki during a past security operation.
Special security officers have been deployed to the Samburu-Isiolo border, in a bid to quell boiling tensions between warring communities in the region.
The officers, who are drawn from the General Service Unit (GSU) and the Anti-Stock Theft Unit, are already patrolling the area with an aim of keeping off possible retaliation attacks following an outbreak of clashes between rival communities.
In the past three days, one person has been shot dead and five others suffered gunshot wounds as rival herders from Samburu and Isiolo counties clashed.
Tension has gripped the region, but Samburu Commissioner Henry Wafula said the GSU and ASTU teams had been positioned in hot spots to counter possible retaliation attacks.
The commissioner said the GSU and ASTU officers drawn from Losesia camp are currently manning hotspots in the troubled region to calm the situation.
"We have deployed our GSU and ASTU officers to contain the situation along the borderline. We really want communities, especially herders to coexist peacefully even as drought rages on," Mr Wafula said.
The official blamed the ongoing drought as exacerbating conflicts among pastoralists with the conflicts surrounding access to water and pasture. Clashes over water and pasture have significantly increased in the drought-affected pastoralist areas in the Samburu-Isiolo borders. After nearly three years of poor rains, swaths of the northern parts have had their grazing pasture scorched, leaving animals and humans desperate.
Mr Wafula said the current drought situation was one factor driving conflicts among pastoralists living around Samburu and Isiolo borders amid a fierce scramble to control scarce water points and pastures.
"The current drought situation is also exacerbating conflicts because there is no water or pastures. Most of these conflicts surround access to available drying water and pasture points," he said.
"We are activating grazing committees to avert more conflicts as drought rages on," he added.
The administrator revealed that they have reached out to leaders and elders in a bid to hold frantic peace talks in troubled areas.
Five victims of the attacks remain hospitalized with gunshot wounds at Archers Post Health Centre and Samburu County Referral Hospital in Maralal.
Samburu Governor Jonathan Lelelit condemned the attacks along the borderline and appealed to the government to investigate leaders who allegedly incite the violence. The governor claimed that some leaders might be involved in planning the attacks that have brought instability in the region.
"We really need peace and let our people coexist peacefully. I call on authorities to investigate some leaders who may be planning attacks in the region because that is really bad,"
He continued: "This is a drought season and all pastoralists are affected. So we need to coexist peacefully so that we share available scarce resources either in Samburu or Isiolo."
