Kenyan police kill three suspected near Ethiopian border

June 5, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Kenyan police killed three men near the country’s northern border with Ethiopia in a confrontation with alleged cattle rustlers suspected of stealing hundreds of livestock, officials said Monday.

Kenya’s Eastern Province Deputy Police Commander Gerald Oluochi said the three dead were killed on Sunday when security forces were pursuing a larger band of raiders and the stolen animals.

“After we caught up with the bandits, they opened fire on our officers,” he said from the provincial police headquarters in Embu, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Nairobi. “In the process, we killed three of them.”

Oluchi said the trio was among a group of Ethiopian raiders who attacked the border town of Dukana on Saturday, wounding two Kenyan herders and making off with more than 600 head of cattle, all of which were later recovered.

Incidents of cattle rustling and cross-border raids are endemic in the area and Kenyan authorities have stepped up security in the region in a bid to halt growing numbers of such attacks.

The region is home to nomadic pastoralist tribes such as the Pokot, Turkana, Marakwet, Samburu, Sebei and Maasai, who have long clashed with each other but whose attacks have become more violent with easy access to modern weapons.

In April, Kenyan authorities launched a disarmament drive in the region but the initiative has largely failed as many of the pastoralist people who live there fear that giving up their weapons will leave them vulnerable.

(ST)