'We cannot allow such attacks'

2005-03-16 10:15

Nairobi - Kenya has boosted security along its north-east border with Somalia following a brutal massacre by Somali gunmen of 22 members of a rival clan that forced thousands of villagers to flee their homes, police said on Wednesday.

"We have boosted security and patrols along the areas that we think are vulnerable to revenge attacks," said Gabriel Ndolo, the commander of police in Kenya's Northeastern Province where Tuesday's pre-dawn raid took place.

"We just want to ensure that normal life resumes," he said by phone from the provincial seat of Garissa south of the attacked village of Elgolisha near the frontier town of Mandera.

Eight of the 40 attackers were killed by Kenyan security forces and officials said the surviving gunmen had escaped into lawless Somalia despite a massive search by paramilitary police assisted by a helicopter.

'We cannot allow this'

"They fled into Somalia and it is very difficult to pursue them into the country because it has no administration," Ndolo said. "But we shall do everything to ensure that somebody is held responsible.

"We cannot allow such attacks to go on," he said.

Police believe that Tuesday's raid on Elgolisha - which targetted members of the Garre clan and has been blamed on the rival Gurule faction - is the worst single attack in the dustbowl region known for ethnic clashes, mainly over water and pasture rights.

In it, the Murule attackers used guns, machetes and clubs to shoot, hack and slash to death their victims, many of them women and children including a six-month-old infant, police said.

The marauders also killed nearly a dozen livestock, destroyed a number of rudimentary homes and wounded at least three people in the raid.

As the scale and ferocity of the attack became clear, as many as 5 000 terrified villagers fled their homes around Elgolisha which sits only about 2km from the Somali border, the Kenyan Red Cross said.

Ndolo said authorities in the region were working to help the more than 1 000 families - each with three to five members - who fled Eloglisha to the relative safety of the nearby town of El Wak.

"We are making great effort to ensure that people return to their homes," he said. "We are also meeting with clan elders to discuss the issue of security because this is a long-standing problem." - AFP

- SAPA