Editor TLN
14 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Kenyan President William Ruto has ordered the deployment of the Army to reinforce a security operation against unidentified armed individuals responsible for more than a hundred deaths in the Rift Valley region (north) in recent months.
The decree, collected by the official newspaper ‘The Kenya Gazette’, highlights that the military will be deployed as of Wednesday “in support of the National Police Service in response to the security emergency in the counties of Turkana, West Pokot, Elgeyo, Marakwet, Baringo, Laikipia and Samburu for the incidents of banditry”.
Home Minister Kindiki Kithure on Monday declared a 30-day curfew in parts of six counties in the region due to the “security situation”, which he deemed “a national emergency”. “Painful and decisive measures must be taken immediately,” he stressed in a statement.
Thus, Kithure specified that “during the last six months, more than a hundred civilians and 16 police officers have been brutally murdered by marauding bandits and terrorists who steal cattle in the Rift Valley region.”
“These murderous gangs have in recent days increased their terror against innocent Kenyans and security agencies and in the process have set fire to schools, police vehicles and other social assets. Hundreds of Kenyans have been displaced from their homes by the attacks,” he lamented. .
For this reason, it called on “all people” who “have illegal firearms or ammunition” to “hand them over immediately and unconditionally” within three days. “If they don’t, the culprits will face the full force of the law,” he concluded.
