Hundreds of armed men surrounded a primary school and nearby houses in northern Kenya before opening fire killing at least 56, a local MP says. One mother told of how the gunmen killed her two children and beheaded her husband while she watched.
Tuesday's early morning raid in the village of Turbi - populated mainly by the Gabra - is blamed on the rival Borana from across the Ethiopia border. The two groups have feuded over water and pasture in the semi-arid region. Cross-border raids for livestock are common in the area but correspondents say this is one of the most deadly such attacks in Kenya's history. Police say they have killed 10 of the raiders and the others are being pursued near the Kenya-Ethiopia border. There have been reports of a revenge attack in the area, leaving at least 10 Boranas dead.
Former Kenyan Foreign Minister Bonaya Godana, who has been touring the scene of the attack, told the AFP news agency that many of the victims were shot dead while getting ready to go to school. "The situation is very sad on the ground, everybody is mourning the dead," he told AFP. "As of this morning, 56 of our people have been confirmed dead and of them are 22 schoolchildren, and most of them died in their school uniforms." Police say that at least 61 people have been killed. Many of the worst injured have been taken to Marsabit district hospital.
Grandmother Darare Bathacha told Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper that she survived by crawling under a bed as the killers murdered her son, Ukur Boru, 40, his wife, Kabane Ukur and their nursery school age son. Another survivor Okille Hukha, 46, ran into the bush but his wife and four children were all killed. Galgalo Hukka, 28, told the newspaper that he fled from Turbi when the raiders struck at about 0600 local time "killing indiscriminately and looting household property and livestock". "They caused havoc until 12pm and even when we left the town at 1pm, they had only retreated to some 800 metres away from the town. They were armed with rifles, hand grenades, machetes and spears," he said.
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James Galgalo of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Marsabit, the nearest town to Turbi, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that he believed the raiders were seeking revenge for earlier attacks. "There have been clashes all around here in the past three months between the Gabra and Borana," he said. "They are massacring people - from what we saw they used a lot of spears and knives." Kenya's media say dozens have been killed in clashes between the two ethnic groups this year. |