At least three suspected bandits were shot and killed in a shootout with police at a village in Lorugum area, Turkana County.
Police said they recovered an AK47 rifle with three bullets from the slain men in the Saturday March 30 incident.
The incident happened in Kangalita in Kalemnyang area.
One of the slain men was identified as Simon Egielan Lopongorei 37, who police said is a notorious bandit with three pending court cases of robbery with violence, gang-rape and threatening to kill.
He has been under investigation for a series of unresolved violent crimes, including highway robberies stock-theft and possession of illicit firearms for hire within Loima Sub County, police added.
Another suspect was identified as Lokucha Ngeruk alias sharpshooter aged 39 and believed to be a close associate and aide to Egielan.
He has been on the run after having identified as the killer of a police officer at Kangalita about three ago.
He was part of the group that organized and ambushed the then Lorugum OCS on the December 28, 2023 occassioning him actual bodily harm while his accomplise was shot dead.
The third slain man was identified as Liya Logumo aged 21 years and an accomplice of the two.
The other bandits who were also armed escaped and efforts to trace them ongoing, police said.
Police said they recovered 10 spent cartridges from the scene.
Turkana County is among the areas that were initially affected by banditry but are now experiencing relative calm.
According to Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki the security situation in Turkana County has considerably improved since the commencement of Operation Maliza Uhalifu a year ago.
The recruitment, training and deployment of National Police Reservists (NPRs) has also significantly augmented the efforts of the formed up units of the security agencies and resulted to normalcy on the Kitale-Lodwar Highway and several other areas within Turkana County that were experiencing insecurity.
However, according to Kindiki, occasional attacks in the areas contiguous to the Turkana-West Pokot border and at a few points near Kenya’s border with Uganda and South Sudan remains an outstanding assignment, which the Government aims at addressing.
He made the remarks Thursday March 28 when he held a status of County Security Appraisal Forum with the Turkana County Security and Intelligence Agency Heads at Lodwar Town.
This was aimed at generating appropriate interventions for completing the task.
The area is among those that have been facing challenges in terms of banditry attacks.
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.
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