- Police said an operation in the area led to the arrest of the six as the hunt for more suspects continues.
- Police said there are dozens of gunmen roaming the area with an aim of staging more attacks hence the need to focus there.
Image: MINA
Police are holding at least six suspects in connection with the shooting of a rancher in Laikipia County.
The Jennings Farm owner Lucy Wambui Jennings was on Sunday, January 21, shot in the head and arm by suspected bandits as she headed for church.
Police said an operation in the area led to the arrest of the six as the hunt for more suspects continues.
Laikipia West subcounty police commander Benjamin Muhia said Monday more personnel are on the ground trailing the attackers.
He said police recovered at least 12 spent cartridges at the scene of the shooting.
Muhia added the investigators want to establish the motive of the attack on Jennings.
The 50-year-old rancher who is currently receiving treatment in hospital was waylaid by the assailants as she was shot in the back of her head and her arm.
This came a week after another gang raided ranches in the area and drove off with dozens of animals.
Police said there are dozens of gunmen roaming the area to stage more attacks hence the need to focus there.
She was rushed to Rumuruti subcounty hospital and later moved to Pope Benedict XVI Hospital in Nyahururu where she is admitted.
Locals said there has been an increase of attacks in the past weeks and called on security agencies to enhance operations to tame the trend.
She runs Jennings Farm several kilometres from Rumuruti town which has been invaded by illegal grazers who also built shanties.
Efforts to evict them from her farm have always landed in courts as they claim ownership of part of the land.
Security agencies had been placed on high alert to ward off any incidences of banditry and armed conflicts.
Last week, gunmen raided villages in parts of Ngarua, Nyahururu and drove off with an unknown number of animals.
The gang staged the attack on Thursday morning and targeted Mbogoini dam bordering Laikipia National Conservancy (LNC), police and locals said.
No injury was made during the daring attack. The incident came days after a similar raid was staged at Muige Conservancy where more than 260 animals were stolen.
Ranch owners in the area have decried a new wave of attacks by gunmen who usually steal their animals.
This comes amid sustained operations by the multi-agency teams against the incidents in vain.
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.