Caption: Mwingi Central MP Joe Mutambu consoles with fright-stricken residents of Ukasi where five people were killed following back-to-back attacks by suspected Somali bandits in the last two days. (Photo: Twitter)
Tension is high in Mwingi East, Kitui County, after suspected Somali bandits killed three more people in Ukasi area barely 24 hours after beheading two elderly men and torching at least five houses in the same village.
The Tuesday night ambush also left five others nursing serious gun-inflicted injuries at the Mwingi Level Four Hospital.
The latest wave of attacks by the suspected gun-brandishing Somali herders brings to 31 the number of people killed in the last one year alone as a result of pasture-related violence near the volatile Kitui-Tana River border.
The attackers, heavily armed, raided Kathungu shopping centre along the Thika - Garissa highway and indiscriminately opened fire on unsuspecting residents despite heavy police presence in the area.
The raid took place just hours after Eastern Regional Commissioner Wycliffe Ogallo led a security team to assess the situation on the ground after the first attack besides assuring the locals of beefed-up security.
Two of the victims, their bodies riddled with bullets, died on the spot while the third succumbed to injuries at the hospital as medics struggled in vain to save his life.
Area Chief Benjamin Mui lamented that the back-to-back attacks dashed hopes of the residents that the State would bolster their security and restore normalcy in the banditry-prone zone.
Scores of other locals have been maimed while hundreds of families have fled their home to seek refuge elsewhere following the runaway insecurity which has left Kitui residents and their leaders questioning the government’s commitment to end the needless bloodshed.
Kitui Senator David Musila and Mwingi Central MP Joe Mutambu recently wondered why the State, which is mandated with protection of its citizens, was dragging its feet in putting the deadly banditry to an end yet the armed brigands continued to kill innocent civilians.
Musila said he read mischief in the fact that security officers were yet to arrest a single suspect in connection with the wanton killings while they always spoke of an ongoing manhunt for the criminals.