66 killed in Kenya village raid

TURBI – Sixty-six people, at least 22 of them children, were killed in a brutal raid on this remote village in north-eastern Kenya in what is believed to be the country’s worst-ever single episode of inter-clan violence, a local legislator said yesterday.

Bonaya Godana, the member of parliament for North Horr district in which the attack took place, told AFP that 56 villagers, most of them young children and their mothers, had been killed in Tuesday’s raid on Turbi village. Police said 10 of the attackers had also died in the early morning raid which terrified residents said was an attack by the Borana clan on the rival Gabra clan spurred by long-running disputes over water and pasture.Godana, a former Kenyan foreign minister who was touring the scene of the attack, told AFP that many of the victims had been shot dead while getting ready to go to school in the village about 580 kilometers north-east of Nairobi.”The situation is very sad on the ground, everybody is mourning the dead,” Godana said.”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 unforms.”He added that 10 schoolchildren were among the seriously wounded.”The majority of the dead are mothers and their children,” Godana said.”Three other people people are still missing and we suspect that they are dead.”Police said earlier yesterday that they had been able to confirm the deaths of only 45 villagers, mostly women and children, and 10 attackers, but Godana and residents of the area said the toll was higher with hundreds wounded by gunshots.Dead bloodied bodies and bullet casings littered the ground around traditional hut compounds known as manyatta, a trading centre and nearby primary school.Survivors said that the attackers were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, bows and arrows and machetes.They said the attack began when between 200 and 500 Borana raiders overpowered security guards in Turbi, which is populated mainly by the Gabra, and opened fire on two manyattas and a primary school.Officials said a combined Kenyan police and military team, backed by three helicopters, was pursuing the surviving raiders near the Kenya-Ethiopia border.In Nairobi, national police spokesman Jaspher Ombati told AFP that security had been ramped up in the area not only to catch the attackers but to to forestall potential revenge raids.- Nampa-AFPPolice said 10 of the attackers had also died in the early morning raid which terrified residents said was an attack by the Borana clan on the rival Gabra clan spurred by long-running disputes over water and pasture.Godana, a former Kenyan foreign minister who was touring the scene of the attack, told AFP that many of the victims had been shot dead while getting ready to go to school in the village about 580 kilometers north-east of Nairobi.”The situation is very sad on the ground, everybody is mourning the dead,” Godana said.”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 unforms.”He added that 10 schoolchildren were among the seriously wounded.”The majority of the dead are mothers and their children,” Godana said.”Three other people people are still missing and we suspect that they are dead.”Police said earlier yesterday that they had been able to confirm the deaths of only 45 villagers, mostly women and children, and 10 attackers, but Godana and residents of the area said the toll was higher with hundreds wounded by gunshots.Dead bloodied bodies and bullet casings littered the ground around traditional hut compounds known as manyatta, a trading centre and nearby primary school.Survivors said that the attackers were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, bows and arrows and machetes.They said the attack began when between 200 and 500 Borana raiders overpowered security guards in Turbi, which is populated mainly by the Gabra, and opened fire on two manyattas and a primary school.Officials said a combined Kenyan police and military team, backed by three helicopters, was pursuing the surviving raiders near the Kenya-Ethiopia border.In Nairobi, national police spokesman Jaspher Ombati told AFP that security had been ramped up in the area not only to catch the attackers but to to forestall potential revenge raids.- Nampa-AFP