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12 killed in tribal fighting
- Details
- Published on Saturday, 07 July 2007 07:28
According to Trans Mara District Commissioner Wilson Litole, this was an extension of the Maasai-Kisii clashes along the border with Gucha Listrict.
However, Mr Litole said only three people were killed, but witnesses and local leaders insisted that 10 people were killed in Kilgoris Town and two at the border town of Nyangusu.
Scores of people sustained massive injuries in the day-long mayhem and were admitted to the St Joseph Mission Hospital in Kilgoris. Later in the evening, looting spread to the residential estates of Complex, Milimani and Majengo. Among the shops looted were Anet Supermarket, Ramasha Wholesalers, Poing'oni Hardware, Standard Electronic Shop, three retail shops and two hotels.
According to eyewitnesses, the killing of about nine Kisiis resident in Kilgoris Town began when an Administration Police officer shot dead a Maasai a few metres from the DC's office.
Mr Litole said the AP, who was arrested, "shot the boy accidentally as he shot in the air to scare off marauding Maasais" . An inquest into the killing had been opened, he added.
Several people arrested in connection with the fracas were released as hundreds of Maasai women demonstrated at the police station and demanded their release.
Police hurled tear gas canisters at the looters and women amid deafening gunfire as they engaged in running battles with hundreds of moran.
Another two Kisiis were killed at Olemtong'it Hill in Trans Mara along the border when the two communities clashed at around 6 pm on Thursday.
In response to a question by journalists regarding the operations of security officers along the border, Mr Litole said: "The police have become helpless!" According to the DC, trouble started at around midday on Thursday, when rumours spread in Kilgoris Town that Kisiis had plucked a Maasai out of a Nissan matatu at Nyangusu.
Government vehicles were used to ferry thousands of Kisiis fleeing the area. Those who could not get means of transport to their home district spent Thursday night at the Kilgoris Police Station, the AP canteen and the DC's office veranda.
By yesterday morning, the town was still tense and fearful as business premises remained closed. Virtually all government offices remained closed and the few that were open rendered no services.
Meanwhile, road transport services between Kilgoris and Kisii towns were paralysed yesterday as matatus and buses were withdrawn from the route. At the same time, the district has in the past week been cut off from the rest of the country as telephones remained out of order.
Nyanza Provincial Commissioner Wilson Chepkwony yesterday warned the communities living in the province against threatening the peace."People are now eliminating others. It is a pity that some people leave their homes at night to live with animals in the bush and cause chaos," said Mr Chepkwony.
The PC, who was addressing worshippers at Gendia SDA Church in Rachuonyo District, called for peaceful co-existence between the residents of the province. He said that the Government had deployed security personnel to the areas affected by violence.
