Residents of northern Kenya are not citizens of a lesser god

An attack by bandits on Puspusion village along Turkana-Baringo counties border earlier in the month left 14 villagers, including children dead. A week later, their bodies continued to rot in the sun. Their death did not raise any political heat locally, nor has there been public outcry on the brutal massacre of our citizens. Last year, in Nadome village along the same border, dozens were massacred in the same way. Their bodies were similarly left to rot, to be scavenged by wild animals. It has been the trend in the arid northern counties where pastoralist communities dominate.

American writer, Negley Farson wrote about the region in 1960s; “there is one half of Kenya about which the other half knows nothing and seems to care even less [about]’. In the colonial days, the British referred to the inhabitants as ‘hostile tribes’ and banished them to the periphery. Up until 1997, two separate legal regimes applied in Kenya; to the northern frontier districts of this country, successive regimes applied emergency laws that gave the Executive extensive powers to ostensibly preserve security of the country, leading to degrading treatment of residents, legacy poverty and a policy of exclusion that denied the region economic development. Collective punishment by security forces often ended up in brutal massacres, such was committed in Wagalla in 1984. Often such brutalities are preceded by calls for forceful disarmament and security operations.