• A worker nearly stepped on poisonous reptile basking in the assembly compound
• Residents rushed in and used sticks to kill the snake
Image: JOSEPH KANGOGO
Residents of Kabarnet town killed a poisonous 10-foot black mamba found basking inside the premises of Baringo county assembly on Friday.
Vincent Cheptoo said a worker nearly stepped on the serpent weighing that was found basking around 11am.
“It immediately slithered down a manhole and hid in a sewer tunnel, making the search exercise to locate it tedious” Cheptoo said.
Bernard Keter said efforts to reach for the Kenya Wildlife Service wardens in Kabarnet headquarters were futile.
“We rang KWS several times but they could not respond to the emergency,” Keter said.
Business came to a standstill as hundreds of residents closed shops and milled outside the fence of the assembly, shouting and ordering the killing of the snake.
The spectators wondered how the huge snake managed to enter tidy compound of the assembly.
“Some people were murmuring and believing that it may be somebody’s pet in the assembly used for witchcraft” a resident said.
It took them almost the all day to recover and kill the snake, from 11am to 6pm.
Keter said at last they asked the fire brigade from Kabarnet town who helped by inserting a high-pressure water pipe to flush out the snake.
“We assigned 15 men who entered inside the room and used sticks to kill the energetic black snake,” Keter said.
Baringo county KWS deputy Warden David Cheruiyot confirmed receiving report of the snakes. “But the notice was too short to mobilize our officers to rush to the scene on the right time,” Cheruiyot said.
Hovwer the residents of Baringo are worried about the high number of stray snakes besides rampant cases of snakebites.
Last week the Baringo public health Chief Officer Doctor Winnie Bore said as county government they have managed to purchase and avail anti-snake venom drugs in all local dispensaries to cut on emergencies and controllable snakebite deaths.
“We are happy to report that we had zero cases of snake bites in 2019 as compared to over 6000 cases in 2016-2017” She said.
Earlier on, Governor Stanley Kiptis had made an appeal to the national government to assign specialized experts to carry out research on the locally available snakes to ascertain the relevant and effective drugs. Ends