Ethiopian fighters attack Wajir, northeastern Kenya

Kenyan Member of Parliament (MP) for Wajir North Ali Abdullahi Ali has claimed that over 200 heavily-armed Ethiopian "militiamen" invaded Wajir District on last Thursday (8 June), stealing some 5,000 head of cattle and 900 camels. He said three women were injured in the fight, and three men were missing, "presumed dead". According to an interview on state radio, monitored by the BBC, the attack took place at Adadi Jolle, five km from the Kenya-Ethiopia border, around midday. The MP described the attackers as Ethiopians in military uniform and said that as far as he and local people were concerned "the Ethiopian military has attacked innocent Kenyans". He said the Ethiopians had also attacked Gurar a week before, killing a 12-year-old boy and injuring another person, and driving away 100 head of cattle. Calling on the Kenyan government to institute adequate security measures in the area, Ali warned that tension was building up in the region because of the invasions. According to the legislator, the Wajir District Security Committee had done all it could to "contain the situation" but said it needed support from central government. The animals were reportedly driven to Kadada in Ethiopia. The attack is the latest in a number of incidents on the Kenyan border involving members of an Ethiopian anti-government militia - the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) - and the Ethiopian army on pursuit and retaliation missions. A regional expert told IRIN that it was an "open secret" that members of the OLF had been hosted by the Boran group near the border over the last few years. The Kenyan government appears embarrassed about the OLF presence and there is no evidence of any official support. Kenya has been eager to maintain good relations with Addis Ababa and the two sides hold regular security meetings. "When it comes to Ethiopia, the government is very quiet, even though it knows the OLF operates from Kenyan territory," the expert said. Marsden Madoka, Minister of State in charge of Internal Security, has denied in parliament the presence of the OLF in northern Kenya, but high-ranking Kenyan security members have acknowledged its existence during district and national security meetings, government sources told IRIN. The OLF manages to operate in remote, peripheral and underdeveloped areas of north and northeastern Kenya, where government responses to persistent banditry, inter-clan and inter-tribal clashes and border insecurity have been poor. The government has periodically carried out disarmament exercises in the northeast. Sources in Wajir told IRIN that disarmament has not been complemented by increased security measures, leaving pastoralist communities vulnerable to attack. The OLF is dependent on goodwill and community support from the related Boran ethnic groups. It has repaid its "debt" by participating in tribal vendettas against the Somali communities in the northeast province, a former OLF leader told IRIN. It has also, allegedly, been a dynamic in the recent Isiolo clashes, northern Kenya, where sophisticated weaponry has escalated inter-tribal fighting. The 'Daily Nation' reported on 11 June that most estates of Isiolo town are being patrolled by armed tribal militia while police patrols are confined to the town centre. Gunfights last for as long 30 minutes, in clashes that have claimed the lives of more than 50 people in the last month. According to the 'Daily Nation', the fighting "is seen as part of an attempt to drive out Somali pastoralists from Wajir...(who)... have resisted attempts to drive them away". Inter-community fighting has intensified in Kenya because of prolonged drought conditions, forcing pastoralist communities to compete for grazing and water resources. Diplomatic sources told IRIN that there was concern that the Kenyan army was "overstretched" trying to keep order in the increasingly lawless north.