The police death toll from an ambush
on Kenyan officers in the north of the country more than doubled to 26 Sunday
after more bodies were found.
Locals in the northern district where
the initial attack took place also said that fighting between police and gunmen
had continued for a second day.
The previous police death toll from
Saturday's attack on officers pursuing cattle thieves was 11.
But a police source who did not want
to be identified told AFP:
"More bodies have been recovered -- the total is now 29" -- including
26 police officers and three bandits.
"Of the 18 bodies found this
afternoon, 15 are policemen," added the source.
The remoteness of the northern Baragoi
district, where the attack took place, explained why it took a day after the
attack for the bodies to be discovered, said the source.
Witnesses to the attack told AFP that the attackers had
used heavy weapons against the police officers.
"More than 20 people were killed,
new bodies were taken away and the fighting continued all day (Sunday),"
one resident, Paul Lenaimadu, told AFP.
"Now we fear (police) reprisals
because the force that is going to be used to pursue the cattle thieves is not
going to be directly only against them and a lot of innocents will
suffer," he added.
The group of rustlers police were
pursuing were already suspected of killing 13 people in another raid on October
30.
They only set out after the rustlers
when a deadline for the return of the cattle expired.
Another nine policemen are recovering
from their injuries in hospital in Nairobi, hospital spokesman Kibet Mengich
said.
Cattle theft and the ensuing clashes
between rival nomadic groups claim dozens of lives every year in arid northern
Kenya. It is rare however for police officers themselves to be attacked.
But police numbers there are low and
the officers are poorly equipped. The cattle herders have therefore armed
themselves against attacks from rival groups.
Elsewhere in Kenya, in the southeast
Tana River region, inter-communal violence claimed more than a hundred lives in
August and September.
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