Tribal fighters from Sudan and Ethiopia kill nine Kenyans

KITALE, Kenya, May 31, 2005 (AP) — Ethiopian and Sudanese tribal fighters attacked and killed nine people in separate cattle raids in Kenya, officials said Tuesday.

Toposa fighters from southern Sudan gunned down five members of one family, including two school children, during a raid Monday in the Turkana district of northwestern Kenya, said Bernard Muli, a local police officer.

The Sudanese were apparently taking revenge for the theft of their cattle three days earlier, said Peter Moru of the Roman Catholic church’s Peace and Justice Commission in Turkana, 650 kilometers (404 miles) northwest of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

The raiders sprayed the family with bullets after failing to recover their 20 heads of cattle, Moru said. It was not clear any member of the family was connected to the initial cattle theft.

In another attack Monday, cattle raiders from neighboring Ethiopia attacked a village in the Marsabit district of northeastern Kenya, killing at least four people before driving off over 100 heads of cattle, police said.

Kenya’s police later recovered the stolen animals, but the assailants were not found because they had probably crossed into Ethiopia after the raid, said Thomas Chigamba, the Eastern provincial police chief.

A lawmaker from the area, Bonay Godana, however, said seven people were killed in the attack in Marsabit, 450 kilometers (280 miles) northeast of Nairobi.

The Kenyan officials have contacted Ethiopian security forces to assist in tracking down the assailants.