Thursday, April 24, 2014

KENYA: Resource battle kills 20 in north

7:01 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

ISIOLO, 23 July 2009 (IRIN) - 
Large numbers of security forces have been deployed to a town in northern Kenya after 20 people died in July alone during clashes.

Tensions over water and pasture during a drought in the surrounding arid rangelands unusually spilled over into extensive rioting in the town of Isiolo on 18 July.

Politically exploited ethnicity plays a part, observers say, as four ethnic groups have made two, possible temporary, rival alliances.

Local politicians have pointed a finger at an uneven distribution of arms to "reservists" by the government as inflaming the situation.

Samburu, Turkana and Borana leaders, including Samburu East Member of Parliament Raphael Letimalo, urged the government to seize some 300 guns issued to herders in Isiolo three months ago, saying the weapons were being used in raids against other communities.

An official of the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) said hundreds of those displaced urgently needed food and medicine and were living in deplorable conditions in Isiolo town.

"Kenya Red Cross Society has provided first-aid services and distributed some blankets to children in the [temporary] camps; the affected families, however, need food and medical assistance," Titus Mung'ou, the KRCS communications manager, told IRIN.

Mung'ou said the temporary camps lacked water and adequate sanitation facilities, adding that local aid agencies and the government had initiated plans to assist and resettle the displaced.

At least 1,700 families were displaced in villages near Isiolo town following the fighting between the Borana and Somali communities on the one hand, and the Samburu and Turkana communities on the other.

The fighting was mainly at a grazing area in Gambella Location, 10km north of Isiolo. The field is trust land, stretching across Isiolo and Meru North district.

According to the KRCS, another 200 families – pastoralists and crop farmers - have been displaced in the neighbouring Meru region.

The displaced families have been camping at Isiolo police station and a livestock marketing centre nearby, known as LMD. Others have sought refuge at the Ngaremara Church and in the villages of Kambi ya Juu and Cecheles, all on the outskirts of Isiolo town. Others have moved in with relatives and friends in town.


Photo: http://ochaonline.un.org/ 
Staying put 

Despite the heavy presence of security personnel, a number of the displaced told IRIN they would not leave their temporary camps until the dispute was completely resolved.

Mohamed Noor, a livestock owner and trader, said the fighting had forced pastoralists to flee the area towards Isiolo town with at least 20,000 livestock. "We cannot get grass for our animals, those of us who were farming are now begging for food as we cannot access our farms,” he said.

Marius Tum, the Isiolo police commander, said on 21 July that hundreds of security personnel drawn from across the district and other parts of the country had been deployed to all the villages around Isiolo town. He said their presence defused tension and families had started returning to their farms.

However, Tum said the police had started investigating reports that some politicians were fuelling the fighting. "The fighting was first triggered by the current drought but it seems somebody or a certain group of people are inciting these communities to continue fighting; it will not be accepted," Tum said.

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[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

In Brief: Hundreds flee attack in east Kenyan town

6:56 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

ISIOLO, 17 November 2009 (IRIN) - 
Hundreds of people have fled their homes in Isiolo, eastern Kenya, following an attack by armed men that left 11 people dead in Kisima locality, the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) said.

"More than 100 Turkana [families] have left their homes since [15 November]," Gitonga Mugambi, the KRCS coordinator in Isiolo, said. "They are moving to the Ngaremara area [about 30km from Isiolo town], which they believe is safe."

Affected communities include the Turkana, who are said to have been behind the attack, the Somali, Borana and Samburu communities. One of those affected, Peter Kalapata, said: "Our women are unable to go to Isiolo town to sell charcoal or buy food; the sick cannot go to the hospital. Things are bad; we need security for all the communities."

The Kisima attack, which occurred about 5km from Isiolo town, also left six people injured, with hundreds of heads of livestock, which were later recovered, stolen, according to the Isiolo divisional police commander, Sammy Kosgey. Tension in Isiolo is still high and has affected learning, Kenya National Union of Teachers Isiolo Secretary, Mohamud Halake, told IRIN on 16 November.

na/aw/mw
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KENYA: Voices of peace in a land of conflict

6:44 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

SAMBURU/ISIOLO, 24 September 2010 (IRIN) - 
In an effort to stem the endemic violent banditry and cattle-rustling that plagues pastoralist areas in northern Kenya, professionals and community leaders from various ethnic groups have been criss-crossing the region in “peace caravans”.

IRIN hitched a ride with one such caravan, which held meetings bringing together members of the Samburu, Rendile, Borana, Gabra, Turkana, Pokot, Somali and Meru communities.

“I get sad that the only reports from my Samburu community and our neighbours are all about killings and deaths,” said one member, TV news anchor Naisula Lesuda.

“The morans [young men] who raid our neighbours are thieves, killers. The women must stop singing praise songs for them or accepting stolen animals as dowry,” she added.

“Our elders must ensure that morans who kill or steal are punished, they must not be honoured with bracelets on their hands for killings and raids,” said Juma Lekaruaki, an accountant.

There were some 412 violent deaths in northern Kenya in 2009, according to Pastoralist Voices, a publication of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Resolving differences

Francis Merinyi, who campaigns to promote the rights of children, said: “The number of orphaned and desperate children without access to education in Laikipia, Samburu and Pokot is increasing at an alarming rate.

“Nobody is helping them, they get killed as they attempt to change and get themselves out of poverty and own livestock, the only source of livelihood known to them.”

Sam Kona, a peace and conflict resolution expert with USAID, which together with the Kenyan government and Development Alternative Initiatives supports the caravans, said: “We are forging unity, informing our people that we are not permanent enemies. We have disagreed, but the differences can be resolved without the killings and stealing of animals,” added Kona, from the Turkana community.

“We have reduced our population and increased the number of poor families as we fight over pasture. Many smart brains, [potential] doctors, pilots, teachers have died while stealing animals or in raids,” he said.

Pokot and Samburu youths often clash over water and pasture with perennial drought exacerbating raids.

“Several attempts have been made in the past to end rivalry between us but failed... they all involved the use of force. Our approach is different, our people listen to us and I am confident they will accept our messages,” James Teko, a banker from the Pokot community, told IRIN while addressing a peace meeting at Naisunyai, Wamba, Samburu district, attended by morans, women and elders.

“Northern Kenya has always been like a war zone. The situation has worsened in recent years. It is shameful that we always meet to plan funerals and raise money for the injured while professionals from other parts of Kenya meet to discuss development issues,” added Teko.

Women’s work

Another member of the Waso caravan, Fanny Mohamed, said women had a crucial role in conflict resolution, but were rarely given the opportunity.

“We must monitor our children and discourage our boys from stealing livestock,” said Mohamed. “Somali women in Isiolo no longer sing praise songs for livestock thieves. We now use the same songs to encourage our people to educate their children.”


Photo: Anthony Morland/IRIN 
Small arms are very common among pastoralists across the arid lands of northern Kenya
So-called peace warriors, morans who have renounced cattle-raids, are also part of the peace caravans. Some lamented the lack of income and insecurity posed by other morans still bearing arms.

 “We ask to be assisted to buy and sell animals, start small businesses or be employed in the tourist hotels,” Lodukasho Lesiamo said.

A Maasai elder in Laikipia, Lekupai Logelan, said cattle-raids had subsided in his area since the introduction of ceremonies to “curse” youths who took part. “Our boys no longer steal livestock; they are involved in crop farming, we also produce a lot of honey,” Logelan said at a meeting in Leparua, along the Isiolo border.

According to the Samburu East District Commissioner, Daniel Nduti, government programmes in school construction and provision of bursaries are helping more children access education.

Abduba Jattani, an engineer who heads another peace caravan that works with families displaced by clashes, said he and his fellow travellers were working “to restore harmony among our people. It’s a daunting task but I am confident that our people will soon start to inter-marry like in the past.”

Mary Alubei, a programme officer with the Arid Lands Resource Management Peace Support Programme, said a holistic approach to peace, reconciliation and disarmament comprising improved security and alternative livelihood sources was required.

“The use of force will not resolve conflicts in this region, it’s important to understand factors which influenced our communities to acquire guns,” she said, referring to operations aimed at forcibly disarming communities in the north.

A bereaved school teacher, Mohamed Jamaa, said money had to be an ingredient in any recipe for lasting peace and reconciliation.

“I am still bitter, my father was killed, 29 head of cattle and a donkey taken. He left behind orphans. This peace campaign will not succeed until those responsible, the government too for failure to offer protection, agree to compensate us,” he told IRIN.

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[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ETHIOPIA-KENYA: Rebel group wreaks havoc in northeast Kenya

6:38 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

Armed rebels are a constant source of fear for civilians in northeast Kenya (file photo)
MOYALE, 23 December 2010 (IRIN) - 
The presence of an Ethiopian rebel group in northern Kenya, coupled with operations by security forces from both countries, has caused numerous casualties and displacement among local residents, who also complain of arbitrary arrests.

"They are a menace," Moyale District Commissioner David Rotich said of the secessionist Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which first rose up against Ethiopian authorities three decades ago.

"They pose a major threat to security and development and are linked to a group of gun dealers and poachers across the region," he alleged.

Residents of Moyale, Isiolo and Marsabit districts told IRIN that civilians were often detained by security agents who accused them of belonging to the OLF, or harassed by the rebels on suspicion of collaborating with the authorities.

Terror

A trader at Walda centre in Sololo, Moyale district, said several business people had to close their operations because of a wave of terror acts allegedly arising from the OLF presence in the area.

"Walda trading centre is a risky and difficult area to do business because it is considered the main military base for OLF rebels; Ethiopian troops frequently attack us while pursuing the rebel fighters who also attack, abduct, kill and threaten local residents," the trader said.

Identifying himself only as Wario, a hotelier at Turbi - where at least 80 people were killed four years ago - said the OLF, often comprising Kenyans and Ethiopians, once ordered him close his restaurant business because of his ethnicity.

"Our county council and government issues permits and licences for all traders to conduct business but [I believe] OLF makes the final decision; I was forced to close my restaurant because my crime was simple, I am a Gabra and therefore considered an enemy," Wario said.

Most of the OLF fighters in northern Kenya are from the Borana community.

A retired chief from Sololo said: "The OLF was at first a pride to the Borana community but it is now a monster; it has killed many of our neighbours."

On 15 December, 15 people died in Moyale and Marsabit districts after fierce fighting between the OLF and a splinter group in Badarero, Walda and Kate areas.

A Turbi resident, identified only as Ndege, said hundreds of families from his Gabra community remained displaced.

"We have suffered greatly at the hands of OLF; many people have been killed, many families are poor after losing their livestock to OLF, many have moved far away to look for manual work, other are recipients of relief food, beggars in towns and some young orphaned girls have been forced to work as commercial sex workers," Ndege said.

Police operations
In November, Kenya police launched an operation to flush out the OLF rebels. However, residents said dozens of innocent youth were netted in the operation.

Moyale police commander Nathaniel Langat, told IRIN: "We have intelligence reports, what we are doing now is very different from the past operations, it has achieved a lot, the rebels have fled, many have crossed to Ethiopia, the government could not just sit and watch its citizens being killed, abducted and threatened by this bandits."

Wenslas Ong’ayo, the Upper Eastern province regional commissioner, said the operation was being conducted "with a human face" and that no incidents had been reported so far. He added that all those arrested were found with weapons and had no permission to be in the country.

However, Wajir human rights network official Mukhtar Nur said an assessment conducted by the group established that local residents were living in fear of security forces and rebel fighters roaming the area.

"Young herders are no longer going out to look after their animals for fear of arrests," he said. "Women are also afraid to go out to look for water or firewood because some have been arrested along the way, held the whole day and accused of ferrying supplies to the rebels."

• Meanwhile, in Nairobi, some 200 ethnic Oromos from Ethiopia complained of police harassment at a protest rally on 23 December.

“The police come to our houses in the middle of the night, abusing women, ripping up our refugee documents,” Tsegaye Gudeta, spokesman for the Oromo Refugee Community Welfare Association, told IRIN.

“Besides detention, some of us are facing daily disappearances and abuse. We were afraid for our lives, have no other place to go and we couldn’t wait any more,” he added.

The protest was held outside the UN Refugee Agency, which Gudeta said should work with Kenyan police to increase awareness of refugees’ rights.

na/js/cm/am/mw
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KENYA: Livestock dying as drought deepens

6:31 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

ISIOLO/MANDERA, 6 April 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands more heads of livestock have died in Kenya’s arid Northeastern province as La Niña drought conditions worsen and water shortages become more acute. 

Drought monitoring and assessment reports indicate that the hardest-hit areas are Marsabit, Moyale and Mandera. Livestock farmers in the three regions have lost more than 17,000 animals since January, according to officials from the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) and the government’s Arid Lands and Resource Management Project (ALRMP).

Mass deaths of livestock began in February, but the average daily loss of animals has risen in the last three weeks as crucial water sources dried up. Many of the remaining water sources are contaminated, leading to increased incidents of water-borne diseases such as typhoid, amoeba and diarrhoea.

A recent assessment by the UN found that the drought ravaging East Africa had left eight million needing food aid, 1.2 million in Kenya.

KRCS Marsabit coordinator, Abdi Malik, told IRIN that many families are becoming increasingly vulnerable to hunger and hardships related to the crisis. “The most recent assessment conducted on the drought clearly shows that the situation is very serious compared to conditions in January,” he said. “More than 70 percent of an estimated 300,000 people are affected now and the figure will rise unless it rains. We expect more animal deaths. Thousands are weak and the few water sources are drying up. Pasture everywhere is exhausted.”

He added that the water shortage and depletion of boreholes had led to a mass migration of pastoralist families from Marsabit and Moyale to Forole in Ethiopia. He said the Red Cross was providing water to primary schools to prevent their closure and to support supplementary feeding programmes.

Jirma Duba, a resident from Marsabit, said water shortages had caused deadly conflicts. Fighting between the Rendille, Borana and Gabra communities over scarce water sources and grazing areas have resulted in the deaths of 12 people. A number of resource-related killings was also reported along the Isiolo and Samburu borders.

Thousands of residents from Mandera have also migrated from grazing areas and trading centres, according to the Rural Agency for Community Development and Assistance (RACIDA). Mohamed Dualle, coordinator of RACIDA, fears the situation will be even worse in April.

“We have not received a single drop of rain and yet the rains were expected two weeks ago. We are faced with a humanitarian crisis. A significant number of deaths, mainly of children, pregnant women and elderly people can be attributed to hunger, dehydration and lack of water,” he said. “Banisa, a rich grazing area and a trading centre with more than 18,000 people and surrounded by 16 villages, is almost deserted now. The only dam which has served the whole population for last seven years dried up last week.”

He added that livestock owners with large herds of animals had migrated to the nearest water point, 123km away, and livestock traders that have lost their businesses are also likely to move.


Photo: Anthony Morland/IRIN 
Migration of pastoralists with their livestock has led to a shortage of animals in local markets
Rising prices
The World Food Programme (WFP) hasappealed for more funds to deal with the crisis in the coming months. Josette Sheeran, the director, said WFP “has only 44 percent of the resources it needs to feed 5.22 million people in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Karamoja region of eastern Uganda from April to September”. 

An increase in staple food prices, particularly in far-flung areas, has worsened the situation in Kenya, according to ALRMP: 1kg of beans in Sericho, Isiolo, has increased from 50 shillings to 80 shillings (US60 cents to about $1) since January and milk has risen from 40 shillings (50 cents) per litre to 60 shillings (72 cents) per litre.

Mass migration of pastoralists with their livestock has led to a shortage of animals in local markets, triggering a price increase and a loss of income for those whose livelihoods depend on the trade. In Mandera, Wajir and Garissa, households have had to sell three to four goats to purchase a 90kg bag of maize, rather than the average of one or two goats.

Hussein Ali, a local leader and an elder from Jericho, said water was even more costly than food in the area. “A 20l can of water is selling at 60 shillings. It’s more expensive than a kilo of maize flour,” said Ali. “A number of families have sent their children to the Daadab refugee camps to be registered as aliens from Somalia in order to get relief food.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said drought conditions, once periodic in nature, had now become a “predictable emergency” and an emergency response was no longer sustainable. Pastoralist leaders said large-scale measures adopted by the government to address the crisis were insufficient and unsuccessful.

na/zm/mw
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ETHIOPIA: Help "trickling in” for millions needing food aid

6:27 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

ADDIS ABABA, 6 May 2011 (IRIN) 
- The Ethiopian government has started receiving food and non-food aid for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in the country's southern and south-eastern lowlands after an appeal in April, Agriculture Minister Mitiku Kassa told IRIN.

"Based on their interests, donors' reactions to our latest appeal varies; we have received cash for non-food requirements while food is being donated in kind for the food needs," Mitiku said. "We had carried over from 2010 so now we are doing an overall assessment on what the donors' response has been and to know where we stand after the latest response."

The Ethiopian government and aid agencies said at least two million people required urgent relief aid in the southern and south-eastern lowlands, which received poor rains due to the La Niña weather phenomenon.

"According to the revised resource requirements associated with the increasing needs identified, an estimated US$75,030,109 is required to respond to food and non-food needs during the months of April and May 2011," the Ministry of Agriculture said in a 12 April report.

The report said the total quantity required to address food requirements for April and May 2011 was 76,292MT, which is estimated to cost $53,404,677. “Considering the available resources valued at $8,521,800, the net requirement is $44,882,877.”

The La Niña-affected parts of the country include all the nine zones of the Somali region; Borana and parts of Bale, Guji, Arsi, East and West Hararghe zones of Oromia region; and South Omo, Konso and Derashe Special Woreda of Southern region, while there are increasing reports of drought effects from northern Afar.

Livestock prices falling

According to a special report published on 27 April by the Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team (EHCT), pasture and traditional water sources have been depleted in most of the affected areas.

"Animal body condition is declining rapidly, resulting in lower livestock prices at market even as the price of staple cereals is increasing," the EHCT report indicated.


Photo: Anthony Mitchell/IRIN 
Pasture and traditional water sources have been depleted in most of the areas affected by the La Niña weather phenomenon
According to the EHCT, which comprises UN agencies, international and national NGOs and donors, the conflict in the Middle East and North Africa has resulted in lower demand for cattle exports from Ethiopia, while global food and fuel price increases have hiked the cost of buying and importing foodstuffs and other essential goods.

In its latest report of 6 April, Ethiopia's Central Statistical Agency said the annual inflation rate soared to 25 percent in March from 16.5 percent in February.

While non-food inflation rate reached 24.3 percent from 22 percent in the same period, food inflation showed the largest jump in more than two years, reaching 25.5 percent in March from 12.8 percent in February.

"With the end of the long gu/ganna rainy season in pastoral areas fast approaching at the end of April, a second consecutive season of very poor rains is increasingly likely," said the EHCT.

Emergency conditions are said to be likely to persist until the next rainy season, due in October.

According to Kristen Knutson, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the needs assessment for the coming season is scheduled to start in early May and run for 15 days.

However, the Ethiopian government says there are positive signs as the rains have started in some areas, despite the outlook for the southern and south-eastern lowlands.

"Almost all parts of Somali region and parts of Oromia region, for example, have received rains in recent days; this is a very positive sign as most of the food insecurity in such pastoralist areas comes from the shortage of water," said Akloweg Nigatu, information officer at the Agriculture Ministry.

Akloweg said vegetation should start flourishing after the rain, providing food for camels, which are a source of food for pastoralists.

kt/js/mw
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Cattle-rustling and the politics of business in Kenya

8:50 PM Borana Broadcasting Television

NAIROBI, 27 March 2014 (IRIN) - 
Cattle raiding in Kenya is often viewed in the legitimizing context of tradition, climate change and resource conflict, but increasingly it has much more to do with organized crime meeting a rising demand for meat, and political violence resulting from a new devolutionary constitution.

The human cost of raids is immense: hundreds are killed every year and many thousands forcibly displaced.

Two sources within the Anti-Stock Theft Unit, a division of the Kenya police charged with preventing cattle theft, told IRIN that an estimated 580 people were killed between January 2012 and January 2014 as a result of cattle raids.

The cattle raids by armed young men involve attacks on rival ethnic groups or clans. At times, raiders come from neighbouring countries such as South Sudan and Ethiopia. But while traditional cattle-rustling did not always involve killing, it is now invariably lethal.

Increasingly, some argue, cattle-raiding is motivated by a competition for political power and resources: political barons use organized attacks to drive out their political rivals and extend their business interests.

“The [2010] constitution heavily devolved power and resources to the grassroots and this has in turn increased competition for political power and resources in formerly marginalized areas and, as such, issues like cattle-rustling have transformed from being cultural to a tool to perpetuate power and violence,” Betty Budho, a political analyst at the University of Nairobi, told IRIN.

She added: “I believe in northern Kenya, it would be foolhardy for anybody to view cattle raids in isolation and forget the political and economic motivations for it. With devolution, the power struggles between pastoralists have become common.”

According to the authors of a 2014 report entitled On the margin: Kenya’s pastoralists, such struggles peaked during the 2013 elections, the first to be held under the devolutionary constitution, in which significant powers are decentralized to 47 new counties, under influential governors.

In a country where political allegiance is driven far more by ethnicity than ideology, “communities competed against each other for representation, and particularly for the role of governor,” the report explained.

“A tribe’s local dominance can swing a local election, and in some areas smaller ones formed alliances such as the Rendille, Gabra and Burji (REGABU), which was established to counter the dominant Borana in Marsabit. Whether the outcome is the rule of one dominant tribe at the exclusion of others, or a coalition of minority tribes ruling over a dominant one, there is an inherent risk of instability and tension,” it said.

Marsabit is a remote and historically marginalized district of northern Kenya.

In a 2013 paper entitled Guns, Land, and Votes: Cattle Rustling and the Politics of Boundary(re)making in northern Kenya, Clemens Greiner argued that there is a disguised relationship between politics and cattle raids.

“The erosion of traditional governance structures has led to a power vacuum that is increasingly filled by political leaders and other power brokers who grasp the opportunity to renegotiate boundaries and access to land…

“They have realized that on the national level ethnic mobilization has played a major role in political struggles, and they carry these dynamics even into the remotest pastoralist areas, where the struggle for land is progressively ethnicized. In this context, livestock raiding emerges as a specific form of violent regulation: a well-adapted, dangerous, and powerful political weapon,” he said.

According to Josephat Nanok, the governor of the northwestern county of Turkana where cattle raids are common, “Continuing to treat [cattle-rustling] like a cultural practice is akin to condoning an illegal business. It has been highly commercialized and many politicians are now using it to create support zones for themselves,” he told IRIN.

“The political connection to me, explains the reason such raids occur with more frequency during elections,” Nanok added.

Enoch Mwani, an agricultural economist at the University of Nairobi, says local pastoralists are no longer the only ones involved in cattle-rustling.

“Cattle-rustling has always been an activity to replenish herd stock but it isn’t [just] that any more. Cattle raids in the lawless Horn of Africa are driven by the desire by those communities to get money to buy arms, and by business people who want to cash in on a growing urban population in need of meat,” Mwani said.

“That some still do it as a cultural practice isn’t completely false, but it isn’t completely true either. Tribal conflicts are common and communities need arms to protect themselves when the governments fail to do so, and meat traders provide an easy source of money to buy arms,” he added.

Commercialized cattle-rustling

Trade in livestock is big business. According to the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, Kenya will have a beef deficit of about 4,500 tons in 2014 due to high local consumption and export demands.

The Kenya Meat Commission estimates that some 500 tons of beef are exported from Kenya each week to the Middle East (United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) and Africa (Egypt, Tanzania, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan).
Photo: Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/IRINLoboyi Monoo became a beggar in Lokichoggio town in Turkana after his legs were amputated during a raid by cattle rustlers.

“In many areas we do observe an intensifying shift from a `breeding herd’ [rearing for prestige] to a ‘trading herd’ [rearing for sale] - in part to take advantage of the growing markets for animals and livestock products in urban areas as well as export markets,” Jeremy Lind, pastoral theme convener at the Future Agricultures Consortium and research fellow at the UK Institute for Development Studies, told IRIN.

“Small-town growth in the dry lands has also influenced changes in livestock marketing dynamics. Small butchers and micro-dairying operations have proliferated in many towns in [Kenya and other regional countries] to meet the demand for meat and milk in these areas from sedentary herders as well as migrants who have come from other areas.”

The authors of a 2011 paper on the effects of cattle-rustling and household characteristics on migration decisions and herd size among pastoralists in Kenya’s western Baringo District, noted that “there is an emergence of commercialized cattle-rustling where wealthy businessmen, politicians, traders or local people pursuing economic objectives finance raids among the pastoral communities.”

A 2010 study commissioned by the Kenya Human Rights Commission also echoed this view, claiming that “the meat-loving urbanite Kenyans are the unsuspecting accomplices of these unscrupulous businessmen.”

Livestock markets like Karangware, an informal settlement in Nairobi, are thriving. Transporters from Moyale, a border town near Ethiopia, come to a slaughterhouse here to offload cattle, sheep and goats.

“We will travel back to Garissa tomorrow by bus to bring more goats. The demand here in Nairobi is very big. We are making good money from this business,” Abdi Farah, 24, told IRIN. Farah earns 100 Kenya shillings (US$1.15) for every animal he brings to the city but, he says, transporters like him never find out the source of the animals that he delivers.

“We know some of the livestock is stolen but we just buy because we want the best price. Stolen cattle are sold much cheaper,” Farah said.

Regional dimension

Hussein Mahmoud, a professor at Pwani University (60km north of Mombasa) and expert on the livestock trade, notes that in the region, illegal rustling is transnational and stolen livestock is taken across borders into neighbouring countries.

Cattle raids and trade also have a connection to regional conflicts. A 2008 paperby Alemmaya Mulugeta, a researcher at the University of Basel, noted: “In the Horn of Africa’s pastoral peripheries cattle raids have been intertwined with strongly militarized conflicts such as civil wars and cross-border disputes.”

There are historical antecedents to cross-border cattle rustling. The Kenya Human Rights Commission report observes there was “an upsurge of cattle raids between the Ugandan Karamajong and Turkanas of Kenya” caused by the sudden availability of weapons after the Karamajong overran the armoury in Moroto at the fall of Idi Amin’s regime in 1979.

But, the report argued that ongoing internal strife in neighbouring countries makes getting rid of illegal weapons to reduce deaths from cattle-rustling an uphill battle. “It is practically impossible to conduct an effective disarmament exercise without effectively engaging the neighbouring countries.”

ko/aps/cb/oa
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

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