Police search for missing colleague

Police on Tuesday began searching for one of their own, who went missing during the massacre in Baragoi in which more than 40 security officers died.

But the family of 26-year-old Jillo Woche, who was attached to Anti-Stock Theft Unit in Nyahururu, has already given up on the search.

Mr Woche, who hails from Marsabit County, is believed to have been killed by cattle rustlers, who ambushed a team of security agents on a mission to recover stolen livestock.

Our brother’s body

“We will have to get him dead or alive,” Rift Valley provincial police officer John M’Mbinjiwe told journalists in Baragoi on Tuesday.

However, the family of Woche believe he was killed.

“We spent five days searching for him in Baragoi with the police and from the look of things it is likely that our brother’s body was consumed by hyenas,” Mr Musa Chude, Woche’s older brother told Nation in an interview.

He said his brother joined the police force in 2006 when he was posted to Maralal after graduating from the Police Training College in Kiganjo.

Mr M’Mbinjiwe said the search for Mr Woche is proving to be challenging owing to the terrain of the area.

Meanwhile, Kenya Police Reservists from the Turkana community in Baragoi on Tuesday continued to surrender their guns to the police.

Rift Valley provincial commissioner Osman Warfa said even KPRs from the Samburu community would also be disarmed.

At the same time, Information Minister Samuel Poghisio has asked the government to modify its security strategy from forceful disarmament operations to dialogue and reconciliation to resolve armed conflicts among pastoralist communities.

And rampant cases of insecurity resulting from cattle rustling could have been precipitated by some non-governmental organisations, keen on making a kill out of the activity, it has been revealed.

“When livestock is stolen, these NGOs tell the affected community to exaggerate the numbers so that when compensation is made, they both benefit from the cash,” says Mr Daniel Obola, Turkana East DC.

According to the administrator, these organisations collude with chiefs who give an approval letter — required by donors — on the number of stolen animals to justify the need for compensation.

The DC dismissed claims that 450 cattle were stolen during the raid in Baragoi, saying, the number was too high to be hidden in an unknown place.