26 killed in cattle rustling shoot-out

A cattle raid - believed to be carried out by members of the Pokot tribe - followed by a gun battle with police claimed 26 lives in the Samburu district of central Kenya on Wednesday, news organisations reported. Police spokesman Peter Kimanthi said the cattle-raiders attacked a Turkana homestead, killing nine people and driving off a large number of cattle. Police tracked the bandits to Soito Kikuyu village, about 250 km north of Nairobi, and shot dead 17 bandits when they were engaged in a heavy gunbattle, the Associated Press agency (AP) quoted Kimanthi as saying. The police suffered no casualties and four cattle raiders were arrested, the report added. Some 850 cattle, 240 camels and 470 goats were recovered, the police said. Cattle raiding is endemic among pastoralist communities in Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia but the level of associated violence has intensified in parallel with an increased availability of guns in recent years.