Gunmen ambush police in northwest Kenya, at least 10 dead
Sat Nov 1, 2014 7:10pm GMT
NAIROBI Nov 1(Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen ambushed and killed at least
eight Kenyan police officers in Turkana county in the northwest of Kenya
early on Saturday, with another 12 officers were feared dead, police said.
Two civilians were also killed, the police said, but did not provide details
on their identities, nor did it say anything about a possible motive for the
attack.
Cattle rustling and clashes over grazing and farming land are common in arid
areas of east Africa and these can escalate. An influx of weapons from
abroad, in particular from Somalia, has intensified the ferocity of these
conflicts in recent years.
"The police officers who were involved in a security operation in Kapedo
area in Turkana County were ambushed by an unknown number of armed raiders,"
police spokesman Masoud Mwinyi said in a statement.
"The officers engaged the raiders in a fire fight which resulted in the
death of eight officers and two civilians. Twelve officers are missing and
feared dead."
Mwinyi said reinforcements had been sent to the area to help with pursuing
the attackers. The attack comes one week after bandits in the same area
targeted a vehicle ferrying examination materials to a school in the region.
Kenyan television stations reported that the number of dead police officers
stood at 22 and that a truck they were travelling in was burnt down.
In November 2012, armed cattle raiders killed at least 32 police officers in
an ambush in Samburu in northern Kenya, described as the worst attack on the
country's police.
Last year more than 100 people were killed in Kenya's Tana River area when
two rival communities fought each other for weeks over land and water
resources. The police said the clashes were incited by local politicians.
(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo in Nairobi and Noor Ali in Isiolo; Editing by
George Obulutsa and Raissa Kasolowsky)