At least 48 dead after clashes between Kenyan communities

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.

Most of those killed were women and children, said area resident Said Mgeni.

The attacks were said to have begun at dawn yesterday when a group of about 200 people belonging to the Pokomo ethnic group raided a village in the Riketa area and set fire to all the houses belonging to the Orma, a livestock herding community.

Three Orma men and a woman who survived with injuries to their head, stomach and hands said the attackers were also armed with guns. The four were taken to the Malindi district hospital for treatment to their wounds.

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 on my right hand and then attacked with a panga on my head,” he said.

“They left me when they thought I was dead because I was unconscious that is how I survived.”

Mr Algi said he witnessed men, women and children being shot and then beheaded and others being locked and burned inside their houses.

“They shot us and then attacked us with pangas to ensure that we are completely dead,” he said.

Mahmud Mohamed, a witness who escorted the four casualties to the hospital, claimed that grazing land was not an issue, and that the clashes were politically motivated.

“Whatever people are claiming to be grazing land is not true. These clashes have been there for the last 10 years and for this case, the men who attacked us came from a far place which is 50km (31 miles) to our village. In their village there is tight security and we cannot go there to graze without their permission,” he said.

Mr Mohamed claimed they had reported the planned attack to police but nothing was done.

“We think that the government is biased and we know that this issue cannot be solved by the police because we always report such cases and nothing is done,” he said.

Mr Mohamed alleged that 56 people were killed, including 30 women, 16 children and 10 men.

He also claimed that about 60 cows were slaughtered and thrown into the River Tana.

Mr Mgeni, who is in charge of a government fund for development in the constituency, said it was a retaliatory attack sparked by incidents last week when the Pokomo protested over Orma grazing their cattle in their farms and farmers attacked the herders and injured hundreds of their livestock.

The Orma then retaliated and killed two Pokomos over that altercation, Mr Kavoo said. The two tribes clash perennially but death tolls have remained low through reconciliation meetings between the communities’ elders, the police chief added.

Four people, including two German tourists, were killed when a plane they had chartered crashed in the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya.

Tourism Minister Danson Mwazo said the two Germans, a woman and her son, died alongside the two Kenyan pilots. Tthe plane was carrying 11 tourists. Two more women from the German family were said to be critically injured.