Caption: Kitui banditry attack victims when they marched in Kitui Town to file a petition in the High Court demanding for compensation from the State. Photo: Tom Waita/hivisasa.comSome 2,000 banditry attack victims from 365 families in Kitui County have sued the national government demanding compensation for losses inflicted by armed Somali herders.
The residents, inhabiting the Kitui-Tana River border, want the State to compensate them for the loss of their loved ones, gun-inflicted injuries and destruction of property as well as stolen livestock.
Led by former Public Works Permanent Secretary Gideon Mulyungi, the affected residents on Tuesday marched along the streets of Kitui Town to Kitui law courts where they filed their petition at the High Court’s registry.
Mr Mulyungi accused the government of reluctance in ending the deadly bandit attacks besides failing to compensate the community hence their resolve to seek legal redress.
“As a community, we have suffered irreparable damage ranging from loss of lives to destruction and theft of property as a result of recurrent attacks by Somali herders,” he told journalists after filing the petition papers in court.
He said the gun-brandishing nomads have encroached on Kitui in search of pasture for their camels and have been terrorising the locals so as to force them out of their farmland to graze the animals.
“More than 31 innocent people have been killed in the last one year alone, 50 homes torched, dozens maimed and hundreds of families displaced from their home area,” said Mulyun
“We, therefore, demand that the government should take responsibility and compensate the aggrieved families since it is constitutionally mandated to protect the lives and property of its citizens,” he added.
The ex-PS further said schools in banditry-prone Ukasi, Mwanzele and Sosoma in Mwingi East had not opened since the start of the term in January due to the runaway insecurity.
“Families have fled their homes alongside their school-going children in fear. They now live in makeshift camps in the bushes and on meager supplies,” he explained.
Other affected areas of the county include Malalani in Kitui East and Mutha in Kitui South.
He, however, lauded the State for the 80 police reservists who were deployed to Mwingi last month after Senator David Musila and MPs Joe Mutambu (Mwingi Central) and John Munuve (Mwingi North) piled pressure on the State to end banditry in the area.
Mulyungi as well told the national government to commission more police reservists in the volatile zones because normalcy was yet to be restore