Senseless death has become the tragic norm across Kenya’s central Baringo County, where behind vast swathes of seemingly endless bush, one never knows who may be hiding with an AK-47, ready to pounce. Baringo has been dubbed the ‘Wild West’ of Kenya as incidences of communal violence – mostly from livestock theft – amongst its pastoral-dominant communities surge.
The violence in this region has reached a crucial point where entire villages are disappearing. Eight years ago, Riron village in Baringo County had a population of nearly 4,000 people, but today there are only an estimated 400 inhabitants left.
Around 11am on 27 April, Pokot herders raided cattle from the neighbouring Tugen community in Loruk. Unbeknownst to Paul Chepsoi, the director of Ngazi Initiative for Minorities Trust, he drove into Loruk that afternoon. He says two men wielding Kalashnikovs on a boda boda (motorbike)
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