Although he went on behalf of the government, young Maasai Daniel Spanana nearly got killed when he entered the territory of rivalling Samburus

By Lilian Njogu

22. November 2007

Daniel Spanana’s work of protecting and fighting for the rights of the children has never been an easy task, and more often than not it involves taking risks. The worst hazard so far occurred in June 2005 when he stood face to face with 100 heavily armed Samburu warriors.

The pastoralist communities of Northern Kenya have often had conflicts due to land and sharing of resources like grazing. The Samburu and the Maasais of Laikipia District are a no exception, and two have created boundaries among themselves.

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“It is very difficult for the Maasais to make their way to the land of the Samburu without war,” says Spanana, who is a Programme Coordinator with a youth group called Ilamaiyo (meaning ‘Organised Lion hunt’ in Maasai) in Doldol Laikipia.

Other than being a with Ilamaiyo, he works for the Ministry of Home Affairs Children’s Department. The ministry has entrusted on him to secure the children of Laikipia by protecting them and fighting for their rights.
The mission to the Samburu community took place in June 2005 when he went to rescue a Maasai child. The child who went missing at the age of 11 was taken to Samburu by the father far away from his mother.

The Samburu who are better identified by their mode of dressing have red ochre coloring their hair. That custom is not so common in Spanana’s community. Due to this kind of identity and language barrier, Spanana had to carry along with him a Samburu friend for easy recognition and entry to the bordering community.

“When I heard where the child was, I had to get a Maasai and Samburu friend because Maasais are considered as enemies and are not accepted in Samburu. We dressed in the Samburu traditional attire but forgot the red ochre,” he tells partnernews.

When they arrived, the people at the border noticed that the two men were from the Maasai and on a quick note alerted the warriors. This was when a trap was set to kill them. Without wanting to know what the young men had come to do, the mission of killing them was underway.

“When we got to the homestead of the man who held the child, we had no idea that the warriors had been sent to kill us. Hatred was all over even when the wife of the home couldn’t speak to us and opted to go away,” he said.

Daniel Spanana

Due to the customary law of the Samburu, he could not take the child in the absence of the man left to cater for the child. At this time signals had been sent to all the warriors and time was approaching for the lives of Spanana and friends to come to an end. But they missed death by an inch when the man holding the child came 30 min before their planned execution.

“It was around 6.30 pm when the owner of the home came and he had no idea what had been intended of us. When he entered his house we briefed him on why we had come and before we could discuss further we saw more than 100 warriors’ heavily armed standing outside,” says Spanana.
The man who took things calmly went out and talked to the warriors in a passive way. By then Spanana was nervous and never had any word to utter. But after a couple of minutes the warriors went away and the man came back to the house. As Spanana narrates:

“The men had been ordered to kill us by 7pm because they did not know why we had come to Samburu. They thought we were raiders who had come to raid their cattle. The warriors could not have listened to us because it is against their norms to listen to the Maasai who are feared to be raiders. I strongly believe the man who held the child is the one who saved our life. If he had come after 7pm, we most certainly could have been killed.”