By Cyrus Ombati
Police have discovered two mass graves with unknown number of bodies in Tana River.
The discovery was made by a team of officers conducting investigations and disarmament in the region.
Coast police boss Aggrey Adoli said they plan to get a court order to exhume the bodies. He added they believe the bodies belong to a group of attackers who killed nine police officers.
“We believe the victims were shot dead by police before they overpowered the officers in the Kilelengwani attack that left 38 people dead. The assailants later carried the bodies and buried them in shallow graves,” he said on the phone.
The attackers were said to be about 300 in number armed with guns, spears, machetes, bows and arrows.
Adoli said they have since established the attackers were divided into three groups with one torching houses as another carried the injured. The third group was tasked with killing villagers, he said.
The police officers found the shallow graves on Monday as they continued with their operation of gaining control of illegal arms in the Tana Delta. Adoli said the locals are uncooperative in surrendering the weapons.
About 2,000 security personnel have been deployed to Tana Delta to provide security, enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed by President Kibaki and mop out illegal firearms.
Houses were torched in Kipini and Ozi villages early Monday although no casualties were reported.
There are conflicting reports about the genesis of the fire in the village occupied by Pokomos.
Some residents claimed that GSU officers set the houses on fire as they stepped up a house-to-house hunt for weapons including guns and spears.
