At least 48 people were killed when hundreds of farmers attacked a village in southeastern Kenya in an escalation of clashes between the farming and pastoral communities over land and resources, an official said yesterday.
Some people were burned to death in their houses, while others were hacked to death or shot with arrows, said Tana River region police chief Joseph Kavoo. The majority of those killed were women and children, said resident Said Mgeni.
He said the attacks began at dawn when a group of about 200 people belonging to the Pokomo ethnic group raided a village in the Riketa area and torched all the houses belonging to the Orma, a pastoralist community.
Three Orma men and a woman who survived the raid with injuries to their heads, stomachs and hands said the attackers were also armed with guns. The four were admitted to the district hospital in Malindi.
Ali Algi, who suffered head injuries and a broken hand, said they were attacked by hundreds of men.
“Most of us were asleep and others had woken up when the men came chanting ‘Kill them, kill them’ towards our village at about seven o’clock. They shot many people and then attacked others with pangas (a type of machete). I was also shot in my right hand and then attacked with a panga on my head. They left me there when they thought I was dead because I was unconscious. That is how I have survived.”
Mr Algi said he witnessed men, women and children being shot and then beheaded and others being locked and burned inside their houses.