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3 militiamen killed in Kenya
15/03/2008 19:50 - (SA)
Kitale - Policemen on Saturday killed three suspected members of a militia group fighting for the redistribution of land in western Kenya, a senior police officer said.
The policemen killed the men after they tried to take the officers' weapons at a roadblock just outside Kitale, a town in the west of Kenya, said Bernard Muli, the Kitale town police chief.
"After our officers stopped the car, three occupants came out, approached our officers and tried to grab their guns, but our men refused and shot them down," Muli told The Associated Press.
Police believe the men were trying to escape a military operation in the nearby Mount Elgon district, said Muli. The operation is directed against the Sabaot Land Defence Force, a militia that has been blamed for violence in the region for over a year.
Western Provincial Commissioner Abdul Mwasera told The Associated Press on Saturday that 300 people had been arrested in the operation, which began on March 9.
A teacher and a Catholic Church official told The Associated Press on Saturday that they saw the bodies of 11 people killed in the operation. The 11 people were killed on Thursday, the two said, speaking separately and on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals.
Mwasera declined to comment on the reports of the deaths, and there has been no official toll on casualties since March 9.
Mount Elgon has seen frequent clashes over land, with some 800 people killed since 2006, said Ken Wafula, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in the Rift Valley.
The violence over land in Mount Elgon is not directly related to Kenya's deadly election dispute in that saw more than 1 000 Kenyans killed following a December 27 presidential poll that President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga both claimed to have won. Local and international observers have said the election was rigged. Kibaki and Odinga have since signed a power sharing deal.
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