Story By Dickens Wasonga in Kisumu.

About 2million arrows and 7,000 pangas and machetes and 54 home made guns that are suspected to have been used for the executions during the disputed 2007 general elections have been recovered.

This is according to the Inter-Communal Peace Initiatives (ICPI) national co-coordinator Eunice Chebet.

Chebet says ICPI was set up by the ministry of state for special programmes to carry out reconciliation among warring communities during post election violence and to preach peaceful coexistence among the communities.

She said they have also received a number of property surrendered by those who took part in the looting after the disputed polls.

Speaking at the Kisumu East District headquarters, the officer said they have traversed the country calling on those who illegally acquired property during the violence to surrender them while promising blanket amnesty.

She said they do not intend to prosecute anybody who might have looted any property during the chaos but are advocating for them to peacefully surrender them so that they are reconciled with those they deprived of such property.

She said they have been working closely with the local leaders and the clergy at repentance meetings calling on the people to surrender the property that do not belong to them.

“In our peaceful efforts to persuade the locals to give up such property we have also managed to recover 22 cows in Molo,” said Chebet. She added that the 22 cows have since been surrendered to their owners.

She said they have been helped a lot by those who carried out the looting in identifying the actual owners of such property thus curbing giving the assets to wrong persons.

The officer cited that the acquired weapons are stored separately from other property adding that they will be destroyed at a ceremony they are planning to organize to be graced by President Mwai Kibaki and other security heads in a bid to show the country that citizens have agreed to work together and to stop violence.

“For other valuables save for the cows that have already been collected by their owners, a meeting shall be convened so that their rightful owners identify them.

Chebet was speaking when she received some of the property that were surrendered by Kisumu residents.

She pointed out that they will ensure that the property is acquired by their rightful owners.

Ends