Troops sent to Ethiopia border
2006-04-16 20:42
Nairobi - Kenyan authorities have deployed security personnel in the country's unstable northern region to calm tensions on its border with Ethiopia sparked by cattle rustling, officials said on Sunday.
"Police have been deployed in the area to beef up security," Gerald Oluoch, eastern province deputy police officer, told AFP.
"So far no incident has occured."
Oluoch said that Ethiopian forces earlier last week raided cattle from Kenyan herders who were returning home after crossing the border in search of water and pasture in December.
Farid Abdulkadir, head of disaster operations for the Kenyan Red Cross Society, said that the group had delivered supplies to those displaced by tensions in the vast arid northern region.
"Three trucks of food, about 20 metric tons, has been delivered to them," Abdulkadir said.
He said that there was no official figure on the number of people who have been displaced because many are scattered around the arid region.
Northern Kenya has long remained insecure, with cross-border raids becoming deadlier in recent years as clan fighters acquire sophisticated weapons, mainly through porous frontiers.