Northern Kenya leaders accuse army of extrajudicial killings

More than 10 lawmakers from northern Kenya on Monday accused the Kenya Defence Forces of extrajudicial killings following the discovery of 25 bodies in shallow graves in Mandera County.

Mandera Senator Billow Kerrow said they had evidence that most of the people who have disappeared in the past three years had been picked up by KDF soldiers in unmarked cars and driven into military camps, never to be seen again.

“We even know the individual KDF members involved in the kidnapping, disappearance and killing of our people, and we will stop at nothing short of individual accountability,” said Mr Kerrow.

CHILLING DISCOVERY

The graves were discovered by herdsmen in the Lethe area on Sunday.

The lawmakers, who held a press briefing at Parliament Buildings, Nairobi, in the wake of the finding, said the government had done nothing to deal with extrajudicial killings despite reports by civil rights groups pointing to human rights violations by the army.

Mr Kerrow said leaders from northern Kenya would seek the assistance of the UN Rapporteur for Human Rights or the International Criminal Court to investigate the matter, saying the actions by the army were crimes against humanity.

They said more than 100 people had disappeared in a similar fashion, and most had been spotted being driven into the military camp in Wajir in marked and unmarked Probox vehicles, never to return to their families.

“The victims are picked up in Mandera Town both at night and in broad daylight by KDF officers and then disappear,” said Mr Kerrow.

Mandera West MP Mohammed Mahmoud said leaders from the region supported the war against terrorism but would not tolerate the arbitrary killings of locals.

He said the government should follow due process in dealing with suspects.

The leaders said one of the bodies found in the freshly dug graves was that of a woman, who had been picked up by KDF soldiers in Mandera Town.

The lawmakers claimed the body had been badly mutilated and had bullet holes.

They and claimed she might have been tortured in the camp before being killed and her body was buried “within the vicinity of a military camp”.

TEA SELLER

Mr Mahmoud said the woman was a tea seller in Mandera Town and a mother of five.

“To us she was a woman who was selling tea in Mandera Town and a mother of five and even if she was a suspect, she should have been taken to court and not killed,” he said.

The MPs said the discovery of the graves had raised tension in the area and sparked anger among the locals.

He said the residents even felt the military camp should be moved from the area.

The leaders also called on President Kenyatta to appoint a special tribunal to investigate the killings.