With five people killed in three days in Elgeyo-Marakwet and West Pokot and several others nursing bullet wounds in Baringo and Turkana counties, locals are now questioning the efficacy of the ongoing operation to flush out bandits.
On Wednesday, bandits killed two people in Baringo and Turkana counties and drove away hundreds of livestock. On Thursday, two more people, an elderly man and a teenager, were killed in Elgeyo-Marakwet and West Pokot counties respectively, while yesterday, a 12-year-old child was butchered by the gun-toting raiders in West Pokot.
Children, who are home for the mid-term break, are now an easy target for the killers wherever they are found herding livestock.
The attacks occurred amid a military-backed security operation that has seen the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) bombarding the bandits’ hideouts in Tandare hills on the Baringo and Laikipia border.
The announcement of phase two of the security operation by Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki on Wednesday seems not to have deterred the bandits.
On Thursday, security officers began the bombardment of areas declared crime scenes as they are believed to be harbouring the battle-hardened cattle rustlers, with locals expressing concerns that the marauding targets were still on the prowl in the region.
Mr Thomas Kiburet, the father of a Grade Five boy, Obadiah Makilap, who survived yesterday’s attack with three bullets to the legs and arms, urged the government to up its game.
“Where are the KDF officers whom we were told had been deployed here? The bandits are everywhere and we wonder what the Interior CS means when he says all porous areas have been sealed,” said the bewildered father.
Mr Kiburet said the residents felt cheated at the way the government was handling the banditry menace.
“We have lost lives, animals and property. Some of us have even lost homes and are now living as refugees in their own land. What else does the government want us to do for them to act?” he said.
“We were relieved when we heard the government had deployed KDF because we believed they would be in a position to free us from the bandits, but not anymore.”
He added that residents of Kagir, Chemoe and Yatya locations in Baringo North were on the verge of homelessness following unrelenting banditry attacks.
“What is not in doubt anymore is the government’s inability to fight the bandits. The criminals seem to have mastered the response of the security officers and always attack with great ease,” he said.
“The security officers cannot go after the bandits once they get into the bush after committing atrocities. They know security officers cannot follow them there; something they exploit with impunity.”
Another resident, Hezron Kandie, asked the government to equip the security forces to ensure swift response to attacks.
“If the security units were kitted properly to allow them follow the bandits to their hideouts, this issue would be long gone,” he said.
“The police would rather not go into the bushes,” he said.
Yatya location chief Jackson Keitany urged the security officers to focus on those named as criminals.
“All the bandits’ names and their hideouts have been forwarded. They need to be apprehended and any complicit government officer should be arrested,” he said.
West Pokot county commissioner Apollo Okello said the bandits seemed to be on a retaliatory attack after a raid was conducted in Baringo County last week.
“On Thursday there was a similar attack in the same village in which a 15-year-old boy named Regan Kaywa was killed,” he said.
“Anti-stock theft police officers have gone after bandits who dashed into the thickets after the attack,” he added.
