Bandits Shoot and Kill Reservist, Injure Five In Laikipia

Heavily armed bandits shot dead one National Police Reservist (NPR) in Graton village, Laikipia North Sub-county in an attack on Monday. 

The attack also left five nursing serious injuries.

Laikipia County Commissioner Joseph Kanyiri, said security officers were ambushed as they were pursuing the bandits, after they raided the homestead of Andrew Maina Murugu, and made away with nine cows that were later recovered.

The injured who were shot on legs are at the Nanyuki Cottage Hospital, undergoing treatment and are out of danger.

“There was an encounter between our security officers and the bandits, and in the process exchange of fire ensued, killing one NPR. Five are in stable condition and undergoing treatment.”

“We will not relent in enforcing the law in this county,” said Kanyiri.

Kanyiri revealed that, during the operation, the bandits escaped towards Sieku Valley, in the expansive Mukogodo forest, with the help of a section of residents who acted as guides.

“The bandits can’t be working alone, they could be working in collaboration with some locals of Chumvi, Kimugandura, and some other areas. Mukogodo forest terrain is tortuous and unforgiving,” he said.

He urged the local leaders to partner with the security agencies in taming banditry in the County.

The body of the deceased was taken to a Nanyuki Hospital morgue.

This came a day after another group shot and wounded rancher Lucy Wambui Jennings.

The officer said security personnel are in pursuit of the assailants.

Kanyiri said that the rancher was on her way to church when she was shot in the head and arm

Jennings is currently receiving treatment at Pope Benedict Hospital in Nyahururu.

Six suspects are held in police custody in connection with the incident as the probe goes on.

Ranch owners in the area have decried a new wave of attacks by gunmen who usually steal their animals.

This comes amid sustained operations by the multi-agency teams against the incidents.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has been leading the operations in the area vowing to end the menace.

Kindiki said cattle rustling in Northern Kenya has over the years become an organised criminal enterprise responsible for deaths, poverty and displacement.

“Its impacts are severe. It deprives pastoral communities of their economic mainstay and aggravates the conditions of poverty in the rangelands, fuelling communal grievances and revenge attacks,” he said.

To dismantle the infrastructure of cattle rustlers and facilitators he said, the government is sustaining the war on banditry and its perpetrators, enablers, benefactors and beneficiaries by making banditry a painful venture, ensuring recovery of stolen livestock and rewarding facilitators of recoveries.