A somber mood has engulfed the village of Kataa in Kalamba, Mutha ward, Kitui South after a fifteen-year-old boy was killed by Somali camel herders.
According to reports, the boy died after his throat was slit allegedly by Somali herders who invaded their village Thursday night.
Confirming the incident, Dominic Mwamisi the MCA-Elect Mutha ward revealed that some villagers were found by the camel herders on their farms together with the boy and the boy ran away and that’s when they attacked him.
“On Friday morning we got a case of a teenage boy who was attacked by Somali herders and was studying in Kalambani Primary School in Class Six. As a leader from Mutha we are concerned by the incident because we can’t equate the life of a person with that of a camel,” Mwamisi said furiously.
The MCA elect claimed that the villagers who were together with the boy have not been found and were heard screaming on river banks at night and they fear that they may have been seriously injured by the camel herders yet they were grazing on the land belonging to the Kitui people.
The residents have been calling on the National Government to increase security in the area and drive away the camels without much success. The conflict between camel herders and the residents of Kitui has been ongoing for a long time in Kitui South and Kitui East.
“What we have learned is that one of the camels has a mark and we ask the Government to look for the owner because those who were herding the camel are the ones who killed the innocent boy and we demand relevant action to be taken,” he added.