Gunmen shoot, kill two including lorry driver in attack in Baringo

Gunmen shot and killed two people in an ambush along Nginyang-Marigat road in Baringo County.

The deceased included a lorry driver and his passenger, police said.

The gunmen also shot and injured an occupant in two different lorries in the April 21 attack.

The vehicles were under escort of police when a gang that was waiting struck.

Police said the gunmen struck as the two lorries that were transporting a heard of goats were negotiating a hilly area.

This forced police who were escorting the group to take cover.

It was then that the driver was found dead and two other men injured.

One of the men died while being taken to hospital while the second one is nursing wounds, police said.

Police said the incident happened at Kipcherere drift, located at the border of Baringo North and Mukutani sub-counties.

The gang escaped with some of the goats and left others at the scene.

The area is among those still experiencing banditry amid efforts to address the trend.

Police authorities say they have enhanced operations to address the menace.

This includes the deployment of more personnel and resources, including vehicles.

The area is under the Operation Maliza Uhalifu in parts of North Rift.

Cases of cattle rustling have been on slow decrease due to the operations mounted by security agencies.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen been leading the operations in the area, vowing to end the menace.

He 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.

The most affected areas include parts of North Rift, Marsabit, Isiolo and Meru.