Cattle-clan fighting kills 15

2008-09-16 18:03

Nairobi - Fifteen people were killed in northern Kenya over the weekend when cattle-rustling raids erupted into gunfights between rival clans near the Somali border, police said on Tuesday.

Nine were killed on Saturday and six on Sunday in clashes between feuding Garre and Murulle clans.

"Many were shot dead by raiders who attacked remote villages to steal cattle. Some of the dead were trying to keep away the raiders who managed to escape with herds of cattle," a local police commander said.

In addition to rustling, the rival clans who live near the border with lawless Somalia, have battled for decades over access to water and pasture in the dust-bowl region.

The Kenyan authorities have formed an inter-clan committee to help restore stability and deployed security personnel in the restive region in a bid to prevent revenge attacks.

"Our officers are on the ground to ensure security is restored," police spokesperson Eric Kiraithe told AFP.

Meanwhile the authorities of neighbouring southern Sudan have pledged to ensure the return of a Kenyan Turkana herdsman who was abducted by Sudan's Toposa militiamen during a rustling raid that left at least nine dead three weeks ago, police said.

The so-called "pastoralist corridor" - a region straddling Kenya, Uganda, southern Sudan and Somalia - is plagued by chronic droughts and inhabited by semi-nomadic tribes generally armed.

- AFP