Reports Leo Odera Omolo in Sondu market.
It was as if the hell broke loose on Tuesday night when a band of 80 Kipsigis youth descended on 14 villages with crude weapons during the wee hours of the night and started spearing, slashing and hitting everybody on sight before torching dwelling houses in ten homesteads.
The raid left one man dead with several others injured. a young girl was stabbed in the stomach with what looked like a Somali or maasai swords.
The attacks who an eye witness estimated to have been between 70 and 80 youths were armed with crude weapons like bows and arrows, spears, rungus and swords. The night raid came at between 1. am and 2.am and caught the villagers unaware and apparently in deep sleep.
The unprovoked bloody night raid occurred in the village close to the Luo – Kipsigis border around Holo Trading center almost nest to the main Kisumu –Sondo road. These villages are lying only 2 Kilometers northwest of Sondu borer town where there is full fledged Police station.
The villages which had come under the bloody attack were Ramogi, Kisai, Onyuongo, Koguta, Kandaria, Jimo and Kasai. All the residents of the above villages are members of the various sub- clans of the larger Nyakach. The attack was similar to the one staged by the defunct Kalenjin warriors who carried out politically motivated bloody attack on the same villages during the tribal clashes of 1992.
The attack came only a week after the Kericho County governor Prof. Paul Chepkwony and his Kisumu County counterpart Jack Ranguma had held a peace meeting and urged the border communities to live in peace and harmony and advised them against the outmoded culture like cattle rustling..
The attackers seemed to have been well drilled and both the police and the members of the provincial Administration were at a loss and could not figure out the motive behind it.
Elders in Nyakach said they suspected the attack to be an act of revenge following the recent killing of a Kipsigis man who was in a group of cattle rustlers. He was speared to death and his accomplices fled and disappeared in the darkness. The incident took place a couple of weeks ago.
Communal relations between the Luo-s and the Kipsigis in the area has always been very cordial and warm as members of the two communities mingled easily in Sondu and flourishing border town while carrying out butter trades.
The attackers took away unspecified herds of cattle, sheep and goats. The attackers also stole all valuable house hold goods, utensils, and destroyed cooking sufurias, or anything of value they set their eyes on, in the house whose owners had led the deadly night orgies.
The raiders turned the villages up and down and forced some families to flee their homes leaving their clothes behind as most of the fled naked to save their skin from being lynched by the merciless attackers. Although the situation is relatively calm there is tension and the Nyakach resident have called upon the government to arrest the situation, restore peace and apprehend the trouble makers from both side of the border before it goes out of hand.
It was reported that both the regional commissioners for Kericho County and its Kisumu County were having a series of crucial security meeting while exploring the possibility the lasting solution.
Ends.