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Border Conflict Devastating Lives
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 22 July 2007 23:04
Everyone by his bedside could feel the magnitude of the misery and pain gnawing at his heart. Every muscle in his body seemed taut, and his teeth were gnashing.
A searing pain went through his body, especially around the stomach where surgeons removed an arrow-head on May 14. Itira, who lives on the clash-stricken Trans Mara-Gucha districts border, is one of the 14 people being treated at the hospital for arrow and gunshot wounds.
It was a horrifying sight when the surgeon, Dr Patrick Kimpiatu, lifted the bedsheets to show the part he operated on to remove the arrow-head.
The thread used to stitch the stomach is still visible in the now contorted and wrinkled skin.
Two beds away lies Moyi Omwamba, a Standard Eight pupil at Mosensema Primary School. He was shot in the right elbow by police while trying to repossess Kisii cattle grazing on the prime land the Maasai have abandoned to create a buffer zone between them and their neighbours.
Around the elbow is a bandage and several metallic screws driven through the torn flesh into the bones. The screws hold together an L-shaped pipe running parallel to his hand. Doctors call this combination an internal fixator.
When nurses removed the bandage, tears welled up in the eyes of those present. The elbow does not look like one; it's just a twisted and punctured piece of human limb!
He recalls: "It was around 10 am, during break time. The askaris came and drove away cattle grazing on the Trans Mara side, next to our school. The villagers raised the alarm and a confrontation ensued. Teachers then told us to rush home."
As they elbowed and pushed one another out of the gate to escape, the confrontation between the police and villagers turned violent.
"That is when they opened fire. I was holding my school bag, I felt something hit me on the hand and fell."
On the same day, the security forces shot a teacher and another pupil at the nearby Rienga Primary School.
Nyangware Ongori, who is recovering from a bullet wound in the right thigh, says: "We were in the school compound when police fired in our direction."
In the same ward, lies his teacher, who was shot in the hand at the same time. The bullets were probably from the same weapon. There is also a pupil whose carotid vein - just below the ear - was torn by a bullet.
"He is lucky to be alive," says the surgeon. "The bleeding was very heavy and anything could have happened." The pupils are still in their school shorts.
Asked why police shot children, Gucha District Commissioner Hassan Noor Hassan says: "The pupils are also combatants. When fighting breaks out, they dash out of class to join in. They also worsen the situation by shouting, alarming the villagers. At the weekends, the DC says, most of the youths join the fighting gangs.
Gucha police boss Burudi Makokha concurs, adding that even teachers storm out of class, take up quivers of arrows hidden in their school compounds and confront police driving back livestock found grazing across the border.
Also in the hospital is Victor Mose, a young man waiting to join the University of Nairobi's Lower Kabete Campus for a Bachelor of Commerce degree course. His hands were shattered by a bullet.
He says: "The police came in five Land Rovers as I was herding livestock (on the Trans Mara side leased from the Maasai). They drove away the cattle and when we asked them why they were doing so, they opened fire and I was hit by a bullet."
But perhaps the saddest case is that of Jared Ongochi of Riayaba Primary School. He was struck in the bottoms by a bullet. The Standard Five pupil, Dr Kimpiatu says, was in a terrible state when he was taken to the hospital.
Though the wound has been repaired, the scar remains a chilling reminder of the violence. He lies on his back, legs astride to avoid reopening the wound.
Last Wednesday, near Jared's home, villagers buried two of the five youths killed by police in the Madaraka Day (June 1) confrontation with members of the Abagusii community. One of them, Fred Siro Mokambi, was shot several times in the chest, just like his elder brother, Tom, who was gunned down by security forces during the 1992 clashes in the same area.
The 20-year-old man was shot in the Kiango area - the flashpoint of the latest wave of violence around the Kilgoris/Bomachoge constituency border.
He was among the five people killed on both sides of the border by police on Madaraka Day. They all lived on the 36.5-kilometre boundary that has seen so much blood-letting, cattle raids and the destruction of household property, even crops.
The bitterness in the hearts of the local residents could be discerned from the heroic burial Siro was accorded by his age-mates. They came in large numbers, dressed in traditional regalia and armed with clubs, spears, metal rods, bows and arrows.
Some had even painted their faces with ochre just like the Maasai Morans. Chanting war-cries, they performed traditional rites around the coffin, the climax being a mock-war.
After the ceremony, there was no doubt it was not just a war game they were playing. On Thursday, Kisii and Maasai youths clashed at the Nyangusu border market - and the faces at the burial were conspicuous.
The last clash in which the two groups formed two battle lines - only 200 metres apart at some points, was sparked off by a cattle-rustling incident the previous day. As the burial was going on, the Trans Mara District Commissioner, Mr Wilfred Ndolo, and his Gucha counterpart, Mr Hassan, were at Poroko, Trans Mara, talking peace with a handful of councillors and other leaders from both sides.
That was when the Morans struck and drove away 18 cattle belonging to a member of the Abagusii community. They struck in broad daylight, chased away the herdsmen and drove off the animals. Once about 10 kilometres from the border, no one pursues them, for that is where hundreds of others lie in wait.
The Maasai never falter when they explain their case. They accuse Abagusii of trespassing on their land. To punish them, they say, they take away their cattle and if they don't, the security forces will.
Tabaka Mission Hospital is normally the refuge for wounded members of the Kisii community. The Maasai victims are taken to the St Joseph Mission Hospital in Kilgoris, also run by the Catholic Church.
The fighters are said to prefer the mission hospitals because they are cushioned against arrest by police.
The Tabaka Mission Hospital administrator, Father James Wanjau, says: "They like coming here because we have told the police to keep off our compounds. When they go to government hospitals, police pick them up and lock them in the cells."
Fr Wanjau showed the Sunday Nation a framed wooden case containing 26 arrow-heads removed from the bodies of clash-victims who have been treated at the hospital. The collection is a chilling reminder of the misery and deaths wrought by the internecine clashes between the residents of the two districts. They also serve as an indictment for the Government for its apparent inability to stop the clashes, which have, so far, claimed about 30 lives.
But the death toll may be higher given that the two communities do not normally divulge the number of those killed and those injured for fear that it will depict them as "a bunch of born losers and weaklings," one of them says.
According to Trans Mara's Shankoe Ward councillor, Mr Michael Maito, and Nyangusu Catholic priest Vincent Simba, the toll is actually higher.
"The Government rarely gets to know the exact number of those killed. We do not publicise the numbers because they (Kisiis) will celebrate, saying they have defeated us. We do not want to look like a bunch of losers. If we do this, the Morans will get psychologically tormented," said Mr Maito, who showed journalists houses razed at night, allegedly by Kisii youths.
"We are not killers. We have also suffered so much. In the homes on the border, only women and children sleep inside the houses the whole night. There are always youths keeping vigil in case the chinkororo (gangs of armed Kisii youths) strike.
"We no longer trust the Government to protect us. We have taken over our own security. If the Government cannot stop the Kisii from occupying our land, what else can it do for us?" asked Mr Francis ole Naikuta, the Ololchani Ward councillor.
At the St Joseph's Mission Hospital, Kilgoris, 12 Maasai men are being treated for bullet and arrow wounds.
Mr Edward Sere ole Kosieta was shot on the left side of the hip and the bullet exited on the right - opening a gaping wound. The bullet was reportedly fired by a policeman.
"I was at home when the General Service Unit came in pursuit of a group said to have driven away Kisii cattle. They were accompanied by the owners carrying long knives. That was on April 25, the last time I was ever able to walk. When I was shot, they tried to run away."
Mr Kosieta, who has been in St Joseph's Hospital for two months, tried to rise after being shot but fell again. "If my colleagues had not been brave enough to carry me as gunshots rent the air, I would be a dead man today. My time of death would have been around 6 pm April 25."
The man was in a bad mood when we visited him in hospital on Tuesday. His mother had just arrived with the news that the police had raided again the previous day and his favourite cow was struck as they engaged the Morans.
"I am here in hospital knowing I will never again be able to fend for my children and I am told they killed my cow. What did my cow do to them?" he asks, his face etched in deep resentment.
Next to him is young Paul Kilusi, who was hit by an arrow on the head. The wound is a gory sight.
The other Maasai youths being treated at the hospital for gunshot and arrow-wounds are: Leparan Kiptingos, Benedict Nkeben and David Tirian. They all know somebody who has died in the fighting - either at the hands of the police or killed by their "enemies" - the Abagusii.
Another, Gideon ole Sirwa, was shot in the thigh. He can walk only with the assistance of a cane as he finds it an awesome task to move his injured foot back and front.
Due to the fighting, life at the border area has been greatly disrupted. According to DC Ndolo, the area normally produces 750,000 bags of maize a season. This year, the land has not been tilled.
Although the Maasai rarely till the fertile chunk of land, they normally they lease it out to the Abagusii, some of whom own as little as an acre. But after harvest, quarrels break out over whether the lease bars the Maasai from letting their cattle feed on the maize stalks left behind.
One of the biggest casualties of the fighting is education. Going to school has become a real nightmare for children.
The Rienga Primary School headmaster, Mr John Obiri, says: "All the Maasai children who were in my school have quit. We have also had to cancel morning and evening preps because of insecurity. Some of the pupils are scarred andtraumatised because they know of relatives killed or maimed in the fighting."
Almost every child in the school speaks the Gusii language. No other ethnic group is represented today.
"The children have seen their colleagues and teachers shot by police and the Morans' arrows. They have no peace and even when one is teaching, they keep turning their eyes towards Maasailand. When they see a Moran at a distance, they ask to be allowed to go home."
For Fr Simba of Gucha, the fighting is agonising. Used conducting Mass for members of the two communities, he cannot bring them together any more.
"When I go the outpost stations on both sides of the border, I find people as few as five and they normally ask that the service be shortened because they fear the enemy might strike. It is very agonising to listen to them."
At the border in Bomachoge Constituency every day, one will see tens of Kisii youths, quivers full of arrows strapped to the shoulder, keeping vigil next to their school compounds.
The vigilantes say they have been pushed to the wall and they can't "just lie there and wait to die". When the vehicle carrying the Sunday Nation journalists got stuck in the mud, they came and enquired if it was a government vehicle.
"We thought this is a government car. We would not have helped you to push it. We would just burnt it," one of them said. He then mobilised his colleagues to push the vehicle out of the mud.
At Shankoe, on the Maasai side of the border, the story was heart-rending. When the Sunday Nation arrived at a home which had been raided two days earlier, allegedly by Kisii youths, the compound was deserted.
The children had been sent to homes far away inside Maasailand. There was an eerie silence all round. Just the Nation TV cameraman started rolling his tape, shouts rent the air that "the enemies have now come".
Mr Maito and Mr Naikuta advised us to run to safety! There was pandemonium all around, then the Morans emerged from the bush where they had been sharpening their spears and arrows since spotting us.
But on recognising Mr Maito, their leader told them not to harm us. "We were ready. We thought you were our enemies. We are sorry, it was just confusion," he told the councillor, still looking suspiciously at the reporters.
The security forces are rarely present. As the losses mount on both sides, for members of the two communities, day and night are the same: The "enemy" can strike at any time and it pays to be on high alert. All the time
