Two stray lions on Wednesday night attacked and seriously injured a herder in Baraki ward, Lagdera constituency as he attempted to scare them away from his camel shed.
But it was too little, too late. By the time they lions were chased away they had already killed nine camels.
Nathir Hassan, 35, was woken up by a commotion in the camel’s shed around 11.30pm. He went out to find out what was happening.
Speaking to the press from his hospital bed at Garissa Nursing Home yesterday morning, Hassan said as he tiptoed while flashing his torch, one lion pounced on him sending him sprawling to the ground.
“I shouted for help. My friend who was behind me responded quickly and clobbered the lion. If he hadn’t done so, we could be talking of a different story,” Hassan said.
The lion that attacked him had killed five camels and the other had killed four.
According to the herders, the lions did not eat the camels.
“We had similar experiences before where lions killed camels, but did not eat them,” Hassan’s relative, also a herder, said.
According to Antony Mogaka, a medic who attended to the Hassan, he sustained serious injuries in his left arm and thigh.
“Although he sustained serious injuries and lost a lot of blood, he is stable and out of danger,” Mogaka said.
Efforts to reach Garissa county warden Polycarp Okuku were fruitless. His phone was switched off. However officers from his office took statements from the victim and his relatives.
Abdullahi Abass, Hassan’s relative, said they will seek compensation from KWS.
Abass said several cases of livestock deaths have gone unreported. He blamed the escalation of the human wild- ife conflict on the worsening drought in the region.
