- Police statistics show up to 20 people have been killed in the past two months in the area in separate attacks linked to cattle rustling.
- This has forced authorities to re-strategise as locals protest repeated attacks that have disrupted life at large.
A primary school teacher who survived an attack by cattle rustlers at the age of nine, leaving him blind, has been shot dead by suspected bandits.
The incident is said to have happened on Saturday, February 10, morning.
Thomas Kibet, a 55-year-old head teacher at Kagir Primary School in Baringo North, was on a motorcycle with his wife and a child on their way to Kipcherere Secondary School in the same sub-county for a function on Saturday morning when they were ambushed by armed bandits in Namba area, police said.
Baringo Police Commander Julius Kiragu said the teacher was shot in the head during the ambush and died on the spot.
Kibet’s wife and their child were later found in the area with injuries in the leg and hand respectively, police said.
The motorcycle belonged to a police reservist (NPR), who was also the rider.
The slain teacher had survived an attack by bandits in 1978 when he was barely nine years old, but the bullet wounds he sustained at that time left him blind.
His family is said to have been headed to an Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Kipcherere Secondary School where the man’s other children learn when the bandits struck.
Earlier on, a police officer was shot and killed in a raid on a camp in Chesuman, Elgeyo Marakwet.
The raid happened on Saturday, February 10 morning at the the Chepkum chief’s camp, police said.
Sergeant Anthony Mwangi was shot in the head as he walked to an outside latrine at about 4 am, police said.
His two other colleagues who were at the camp escaped unhurt, police said.
Police said an unknown number of gunmen had raided the camp for a revenge mission. Police said the gang was revenging the killing of a known and wanted suspected bandit identified as Oliver Kimutai alias Mutee.
More than 20 people have been killed in separate attacks in the region in the past months amid calls to address the menace of banditry.
Last week on Wednesday, gunmen attacked and killed two people including a member of the National Police Reservist in a village in Kaputir, Turkana County.
The incident happened on Wednesday morning as the police reservist escorted some locals to a watering point Nakwamoru.
Witnesses and police said the group was attacked by gunmen who had been waiting killing the NPR and a civilian aged 35.
The bandits then stole the rifle of the NPR- a G3 rifle- with 20 bullets and escaped.
The incident came hours after another group of gunmen killed a 58-year-old in an attack at a village in Turkana County.
The body of Peter Lokuruka Ekai, 58 was found on the roadside moments after he had been shot in the head on Wednesday, January 31, police said.