ICRC says displaced from cattle raids suffering

In a survey carried out in late December and early January, three months after cattle raiders descended on the Wajir district in Kenya’s remote North-Eastern province, the Kenyan Red Cross has found thousands of people, mainly women and children, still displaced and fending for themselves in “desolate” camps. “We distributed food and other aid to the victims immediately after the attack”, Vincent Nicod, head of the ICRC’s Nairobi delegation, said in a statement. “But the fact is that these people have lost their only means of subsistence and continue to be in desperate need of help.” The raids left nearly 150 people dead while 17,000 head of cattle the mainstay of the region’s nomadic society were stolen. The families have told the Red Cross that they are “still too frightened to return to their homes.”