Upsurge in Kenya violence kills 65 - police

[Ebusitanus]

I really feel bad about the rich wildlife in such hellish lands. Its basically back to Stoneage.

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/new...S-20050714.XML

By Wangui Kanina
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Sixty-five people including four children were shot or hacked to death in violence triggered by a murderous cattle rustling raid on a remote northern Kenyan village, police said on Wednesday.
Up to 400 rustlers carrying assault rifles and machetes killed 45 people and wounded 18 when they struck Dida Galgalu village in Marsabit District, about 100 km (60 miles) south of the Ethiopian border, in a raid for livestock early on Tuesday.
A police statement said locals from the Gabra clan then attacked a truck full of people from the rival Borana, which they accused of the raid, and killed 10 of them "with crude weapons", including four children aged under 10, in revenge.
Police officers killed four bandits at the village and shot dead another six as they chased the raiders, who fled across the Ethiopian border, police said.
"The total number of innocent people killed as a result of the banditry attack is 55. The number of bandits killed stands at 10," the statement said. Police spokesman Jaspher Ombati said the total death toll stood at 65. No arrests had yet been made.
Television footage shot at Marsabit District Hospital showed children with bullet wounds and deep gashes on legs and arms.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission said it was appalled by the government's failure to prevent the killings.
"That hundreds of armed criminals can terrorise a town for hours without intervention of the country's security forces is a clear indication that the government has little authority in the northeastern region," the rights group said.
Politicians from northeastern Kenya have long complained that the sparsely populated region has been neglected by successive governments since independence from Britain in 1963.
Members of parliament from the area said the attackers were from Ethiopia and complained that Kenyan forces seemed afraid to pursue the attackers into Ethiopia.
"I cannot confirm or deny that those people (attackers) were Ethiopians because investigations are still going on," Kenya's internal security minister, John Michuki, told parliament.
The minister said the 812 km (507 miles) border with Ethiopia was difficult to patrol.
In Ethiopia, Information Minister Bereket Simon said he knew nothing of the incident but would make inquiries.
Clashes in Kenya's arid east and north are frequent as clans fight for scant resources, and cross-border livestock raids are frequent. Local authorities and tribal elders in Ethiopia and Kenya had been holding talks on how to curb the cross-border raids in the area, Kimaiyo said.
Violence has hit in several parts of Kenya in recent months, mainly due to disputes over land, water and grazing rights