•The body of the ward representative has been taken to the Samburu County Referral Hospital mortuary awaiting postmortem examination.
•The killing of the MCA comes days after Angata Nanyekie became besieged by gunmen.
A member of the Samburu County Assembly was Sunday shot dead by suspected bandits in the Soit Pus area of Samburu North.
This is the latest incident to happen in the area that is increasingly becoming inhabitable over insecurity.
Police said Angata Nanyekie MCA Paul Leshimpiro was shot dead by suspected bandits at Soit Pus on Maralal-Baragoi Highway.
He was rushed to Morijo Dispensary where he succumbed to gunshot wounds, police said.
Samburu county police boss Thomas Ototo confirmed the incident and said the MCA was on his way home when gunmen ambushed him.
He was with his driver, who escaped unhurt.
The body of the ward representative has been taken to the Samburu County Referral Hospital mortuary awaiting postmortem examination.
The killing of the MCA comes days after Angata Nanyekie became besieged by gunmen.
“We have a team pursuing the gang to know more and probably arrest them,” said Ototo.
Police said the past month, parts of Soit Pus, Morijo and Angata Nanyekie have been haunted by banditry following numerous attacks targeting villagers and even travellers in the region.
Ototo said police were pursuing the suspects who fled after the incident.
The area has been facing increased attacks which paralyzed operations at large.
It comes days after five people were killed in separate bandit attacks in Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, and Samburu counties last Wednesday.
Bandits ambushed and killed a 59-year-old man in Baringo North and two others in Marakwet East, before driving away a herd of cattle.
The man was shot as he attended to his livestock near Yatya Primary School, while the two were ambushed and fatally shot in the Liter area in East Marakwet, police said.
The killings sparked protests in Kabarnet and Marigat towns, where locals lashed out at the government for what they term a failure to stem the tide of banditry in the area.
In Samburu, the bandits shot and killed a man and his son, before making away with 150 cattle that were later recovered by a contingent of security officers that repulsed the bandits.
There are fears the attacks will continue. Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has been leading the operations in the area vowing to end the menace.
Kindiki said cattle rustling in Northern Kenya has over the years become an organised criminal enterprise responsible for deaths, poverty and displacement.
“Its impacts are severe. It deprives pastoral communities of their economic mainstay and aggravates the conditions of poverty in the rangelands, fuelling communal grievances and revenge attacks,” he said.
To dismantle the infrastructure of cattle rustlers and facilitators he said, the government is sustaining the war on banditry and its perpetrators, enablers, benefactors and beneficiaries by making banditry a painful venture, ensuring recovery of stolen livestock and rewarding facilitators of recoveries.