At least ten people have been killed in Kenya's northern border
in a confrontation with Ethiopian cattle rustlers suspected of
stealing hundreds of livestock, police confirmed on Tuesday.
Police spokesman Gideon Kibunja said Kenyan security forces shot
dead five Ethiopian bandits on Sunday when security forces were
pursuing a larger band of raiders and the stolen animals.
"The five Kenyans were killed when Ethiopian militia raided a
Dukana village (in northern Kenya) in an apparent revenge attack.
This brings the figure to ten -- five Kenyans and five Ethiopian
bandits," said Kibunja by telephone.
He said the five was among a group of Ethiopian raiders who
attacked the border town of Dukana on Saturday, wounding two Kenyan
herders and making off with more than 600 head of cattle, all of
which were later recovered.
Tension has been high in northern Kenya as a group of Ethiopian
militiamen attacked a remote village near the common border over
the weekend.
Kibunja said the attack has heightened tension along the two
countries' frontier prompting Kenya to deploy additional security
forces to patrol the common border that has been destabilized by
decades of tribal fighting often sparked by cross-border
cattle-rustling.
Hundreds of Kenyan herders have been displaced following an
attack by Ethiopian insurgents on villages near the common border
in northern Kenya.
The herders and their families have sought refuge in various
places in fear of renewed attacks.
Cattle rustling are common in Kenya's poor and arid east and north
where the mainly pastoral clans fight mainly for water and
pasture.
The attacks also come only weeks after a peace meeting was held
in Ethiopia aiming at resolving conflicts along the borders of the
two countries.
(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2006 )
