Ethnic violence kills 39 in KenyaPublish Date: Dec 21, 2012
RIDERS armed with guns, machetes and spears killed 30 people,
including several children, and torched their houses in Kenya's coastal
region on Friday, police said, heightening security concerns ahead of
next year's election.
Nine of the raiders were also killed in what appeared to have been a
revenge attack by settled Pokomo farmers against the semi-nomadic Orma
pastoralists after a series of clashes in August in which more than 100
people were killed.
The two groups have fought for years over access to grazing,
farmland and water, but human rights groups have blamed the latest
violence on politicians seeking to drive away parts of the local
population they believe will vote for their rivals in presidential and
parliamentary elections in March.
Paramedics at the Malindi district hospital assist injured people
If those charges are true, it further
raises fears of a repeat of the ethnic violence that rocked Kenya after
the disputed 2007 presidential election, in which more than 1,200 people
were killed countrywide and many more thousands driven from their
homes.
"About 150 Pokomo raiders attacked Kipao
village which is inhabited by the Ormas early on Friday. The Ormas
appeared to have been aware and were prepared," Robert Kitur, Coast
Region deputy police chief, told reporters.
One survivor said the attackers stuck at dawn.
A nurse at Malindi district hospital attends to an injured woman
"There were too many gunshots. They used also spears and machetes. I
ran out of my house and left behind my wife and two children, and told
them not to leave ... but the enemies reached my house, killed my family
and burnt my house as I watched from where I was hiding," said Osman
Amran, 63, of the Orma tribe, who lay on a hospital bed with deep cut
wounds on both thighs.
Children
injured during an attack in their village in Tana River district
receive treatment inside a ward at the Malindi district hospital
Burns and bullet wounds
Police sent an additional team of 200 paramilitary officers to the region to quell the fighting.
Police had already been deployed to the
area in September after the attacks in August. It was unclear how the
latest violence erupted while officers were on the ground, something
which also baffling to the police.
"We are still trying to establish how
these attacks escaped the knowledge of the officers on the ground. The
officers responded after most of the damage had been done," Kitur said.
Police said six women and 13 children were among the dead and nine of the attackers were killed. Many bled to
death from wounds inflicted with machetes. The village was deserted as
the survivors fled for fear of further attacks.
A child injured during an attack in her village in Tana River district rests inside a ward at the Malindi district hospital
Kenya Red Cross, which has a team on the ground treating the
wounded, put the death toll at 32, including several children, with
about 45 houses set on fire. Red Cross photographs posted on Twitter
showed the injured being treated for serious cuts to the arms and head.
One person had lost an arm.
"We have been administering first aid services to many with cuts,
some very deep on various body parts especially the head and back.
Others have burns and bullet wounds," said Mwanaisha Hamisi, the Coast
regional Red Cross coordinator.
"It is almost overwhelming but we have mobilised our people from other areas of the province."
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