Residents of Mwingi North accuse police of abetting the killing of innocent residents in the bandit-prone Kasiluni area in Ngomeni ward.
Community leaders accuse administration and security officials of conniving with the illegal, armed herders who have encroached the area.
Led by local community peace committee official John Musyoka, the leaders said residents want nothing to do with the bandits who move into the area disguised as herders only to turn their high-caliber guns on the locals.
Early this week during a public meeting at Kasiluni market, attended by Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua and Mwingi North MP Paul Nzengu, leaders narrated how residents have been left helpless in the wake of killings by the armed Somali herders.
The MPs visited the area to mourn with the community after a villager, Malatya Mwinzi, was killed by armed camel herders on Thursday last week as he grazed his cattle at Kakunguu village.
Musyoka said the local Kenya Police reserves had been instructed not to use their guns to repulse the armed herders.
“Our lives have been compromised. The guns issued to KPR are just decoy or scarecrows. They cannot use them to repulse the Somali bandits. Already some KPR are held after they engaged the Somalis in a gunfight,” said Musyoka.
He wondered why the KPRs are not allowed to fire to repulse the Somali bandits while the bandit illegally owned guns, which they used to kill the locals.
He said claimed that administration had ordered locals not to freely associate and hold meetings to decide how to repulse the Somali herders.
“We are on our own as our government has abandoned us and became strange bed-fellow with the Somali herders. They visit Somali Manyattas in GK land cruiser to collect protection money at the expense of our security,” said elder Kimanzi Kyaka.
