Blood on volatile border: Grief, rage and residents' fragile search for peace

Dorcas Wanza walked over to the two governors, her face downcast and eyes heavy with grief. The widowed mother of three could barely stand, and had to lean on a neighbour for support, grief and pain tearing her from inside.

Governor Julius Malombe, who had called for a peace dialogue at Nguni market along the troubled Mwingi – Garissa road and was hosting his Garissa counterpart Nathif Jama, called the crowd to attention.

He then handed over the microphone to the grieving mother.

Her voice, soaked in sorrow, trembled, yet the crowd fell silent to listen to her.

“I am the mother of James Mutemi,” she began.

“James was my firstborn…he was all my hope after my husband died a year ago,” she said.

Pain and anger seeped through the crowd. The two governors watched in silence as the mother’s grief turned a tense peace meeting between the residents of Mwingi and those from Garissa into raw reckoning, with the human cost of a troubled border becoming too heavy to bear.

The circumstances under which the 14 year old Mutemi died made the people of Mwingi explode with fury, and for three days, protests paralysed business in Mwingi town and transport along the busy Mwingi –Garissa road.

Reports indicate that the pupil at Kathungu primary school was ambushed on Tuesday by suspected camel herders who have crossed over to Kitui County to graze their animals within Sosoma area. In the face of armed bandits, the little boy stood no chance.

The beasts hacked him to death with machetes and proceeded to slice his body open, as if to send a chilling message. The criminals then slithered away into the dense bowels of the expansive Sosoma forest.

Following the brutal murder, coming just two days after the killing of seven people at Kwa-Kamari trading centre in Tseikuru, Mwingi town erupted into chaos. Irate youths blockaded the busy link road at Ukasi, lighting bonfires and pelting vehicles with stones.

Tensions escalated, and non-local traders operating in Mwingi town closed shop and fled, leaving their businesses under the mercy of the protesting mob.

When Wanza, the distraught mother, handed back the microphone, Governor Jama paused, visibly moved by the weight of her words.

“My heart is broken. I am asking, what sort of human being kills a child? What is their motivation?” the governor said, his voice thick with emotion.

Coming from Garissa town where majority of non-locals are people from Kitui County, Governor Jama emphasized the need for peaceful coexistence. He called on the authorities to act swiftly and arrest the perpetrators who had committed murders.

“We want those criminals arrested. Time is of essence, the more we delay, the more people are pained,” Jama said, adding that together with governor Malombe, they will stand with the bereaved mother and the families of the seven people killed at kwa-Kamari.

But to draw up a lasting solution to peace between the farmers in Kitui and pastoralists from North Eastern Counties of Garissa, Wajir and Mandera who invade Kitui through the border with Tana River county with thousands of camels and goats, the locals, through their leaders called for thorough mop up of Sosoma forest as well as Mwingi North and South Kitui national game reserves, which have become haven for criminals and armed pastoralists.

Every camel herder must be known by their name and place of origin. All camel owners, majority who are wealthy businessmen and politicians in Garissa and Nairobi, should be known by name, the locals demanded.

Mwingi East Deputy County Commissioner Martin Muriithi under whose jurisdiction Sosoma forest lies,  announced a security mop-up of the area to flush out criminals and document the herders hiding there.

“We shall get to know people by their names and places of origin. That way it will be easier to single out criminals and take action against them,” the DCC said.

ODM nominated MP Umulkheir Harun who also attended the Nguni peace meeting, called for a peaceful resolution of disputes, adding that any form of violence would hurt all the communities within the shared border.

“We have coexisted peacefully with our neighbours for years. We should not allow criminal elements to fracture that peace,” Harun, who spent hours stranded at the blockaded Mwingi – Garissa road," he said.

She called on the pastoralists to respect people’s farms and warned against retaliatory attacks.  Mohamed Shidiye, a former Lagdera MP appealed to both communities to give the government and investigative authority a chance to probe the incidents and refrain from taking the law into their own hands.

“We have seen what lack of peace can do. Let the communities unite and ensure criminals in our midst are identified and smoked out regardless of their ethnicity,” he said.

The herders blame shrinking grazing lands and water sources. Mohamed Adan Shiidow, a resident of Boka in Tana River County, an area that has seen an influx of camel herders from North Eastern, complained of shrinking grazing lands in the region, saying that the neighbouring national game reserves always offer them reprieve during dry seasons. 

To beef up security along the volatile Kitui –  Tana River border that stretches from Kitui South to Mwingi North, Governor Malombe’s administration has constructed six police stations which are currently complete. During the meeting, Malombe announced that kwa-Kamari police station has already received a battery of police officers since the recent killings and called on the government to staff and operationalize the remaining five.

“Despite security being a national government function, we have constructed those stations because we want a permanent peace solution. It is now upon the government to deploy police officers,” the governor said.

Malombe revealed that following negotiations with the national government, firearms previously withdrawn from the National Police Reservists (NPR) in Ngomeni in Mwingi North had been restored.

For decades, the bloodletting along the porous border has seen the death of hundreds of people, sometimes out of retaliatory attacks, and resulted in mass displacement of people and closure of schools for long periods.

The two sides have traded accusations of injustices, each blaming the other for provocations, with the cycle of violence appearing to tighten its grip.

However, leaders from both sides say peace is possible, but acknowledge that the deeper challenge lies in rebuilding trust. For now, trust has broken and suspicion runs deep.