Four victims of police shooting to be interred today

The four people shot and killed by the GSU officers during a demonstration in Masimba on Thursday will be buried on Wednesday.

Reverend Samuel Kinayio of the World Arising Church told the Star on Tuesday that the families of the four will have a joint mass on Wednesday in Masimba, and thereafter take the bodies of their loved ones to their homes for burial.

Kinayio, who is a member of the burial committee, said three of the victims - Letomir Topoika, Ntidu Tereu, and Duncan Koinari Munke will be buried in Masimba, while Dennis Mutua Matheka will be buried in Makueni soon after the church service on Wednesday.

This is happening one day after the CS Environment Keriako Tobiko visited Masimba and met with representatives of the four families in Masimba on Monday.

Tobiko gave all the representatives of the dead people a token of Sh250,000 each from the state for the burial arrangements expected to take place on Wednesday.

On Friday last week, Interior CS Fred Matiang’i announced in Masimba that the state will meet the cost of the burial after apologising to the community on behalf of the government.

During the Friday meeting, Matiang’i also announced that President Uhuru Kenyatta had ordered the national treasury to release Sh1.5 billion to the Kenya Wildlife Service to compensate victims of human/wildlife conflicts in Kajiado.

Some of the conflict cases date back to 2018 in Kajiado and around the country.

The interior CS told a charged meeting in Masimba that the government will also employ game scouts from the local Maasai community in the Masimba area of Kajiado, and instructed the area county commissioner and the KWS director-general to prepare for the said recruitment exercise.

He also directed all the seven primary schools, that had closed down because of the elephant attacks, to open after announcing that the schools will be fenced off.

He said the government will release Sh500,000 for fencing off each school in the Masimba area of Kajiado county.

The exercise of driving off the elephant from Masimba, Kiboko, and Merrueshi kicked off on Saturday and some 70 jumbos have been moved to Tsavo national park.

Three bishops on Sunday claimed that fencing off the public primary schools affected by the jumbo menace will not solve the current problems.

The bishops led by the president of the Kaputiei Maasai Council of Elders, Solomon Kisemei, asked the government to open up the Olorien wildlife corridor to allow the wild animals to move freely between Tsavo and Amboseli national parks.

Kisemei claimed the Olorien wildlife corridor land had been grabbed by powerful people in government and is now causing the jumbos to seek alternative routes to the national parks in Taveta and Kajiado counties.