Kids murdered before school
2005-07-13 12:34
Turbi - At least 22 schoolchildren were gunned down in a raid in a remote village in northeastern Kenya that killed a total of 66 people in what is believed to be the country's worst-ever single episode of inter-clan violence, a local legislator said on Thursday.
Bonaya Godana, the member of parliament for North Horr district in which the attack took place, said 56 villagers, most of them young children and their mothers, had been killed in Tuesday's raid on Turbi village.
Police said earlier 10 of the attackers had also been killed.
Godana, a former Kenyan foreign minister who was touring the scene of the brutal attack, said many of the victims had been shot dead while preparing to go to school.
"As of this morning, 56 of our people have been confirmed dead and of them are 22 schoolchildren, and most of them died in their school uniforms," he said, adding 10 schoolchildren were among those seriously wounded in the attack.
"The majority of the dead are mothers and their children," Godana said. "Three other people are still missing and we suspect they are dead."