THE TEARS AT THE KILLING FIELDS OF SAMBURU:

Friends, below is an article from Dominic Leparmara depicting the current chaotic situation in Samburu. The article was sent by Leparmara to Tina who published it on facebook. Diasporakenyan would like to republish it here for further sharing.

The worst thing we can do to our own survival, is to wait until there is no one to defend than our own shame and skin. We continue to call you all who care, to join hands and network so that we can be an irresistible power that must be reckoned with. The target is none else other than the government of Kenya and its unjust system that expose us unto danger.

Thank you all for your contributions.

From Leparmara to Tina

Dear Tina,

This is one narration of some of the victims of the atrocities that are happening in our homeland, it based on more than an hour telephone interview to some of victims and also the experience from my Brother, Nkopiro Leparmarai, based in Kipsing, who himself met all these victims in Losesia where part of my cows are. I tried to edit it but hope you will re-edit, I am becoming too much francophone……

Warm regards;

Dominic Leparmara

THE TEARS AT THE KILLING FIELDS OF SAMBURU:

In the expansive open fields of Losesia, Sanigo Lepôrole sits on a stone overlooking the sunset of orange yellow in the west. Frustration, hunger, deception and grief have consumed him to look someone in 20s even though he is barely 13. Three days ago in a time like this he would have been taking in a cold evening breeze inside their herds while chatting with his elder brother but all this will never be again. Sanigo is among the victims of a barbaric, heinous massacre in Losesia on the seventh of September when marauding Borana Raiders—supported by remnants of OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) a guerrilla group in Ethiopia who have been rooming in Isiolo North since April with full knowledge of the state, thanks to protection of a powerful politician in the region.

This very morning he lost everything; he saw himself losing his only brother before his eyes – another one in less than a month after another being killed by same raiders in the grazing fields in the same area. It also saw him lose all his source of livelihood, his herds, barely six months after the Kenyan government seized other cattle in so called “security operations.” This morning six people were killed in this field, three of whom are his cousins, while ten others are badly injured (some who are believed to have died on the way to Wamba Mission Hospital some 216km from Losesia). Together with members of his extended family, Lenakae, Lalampaa, Leparmarai, Lempere, Lengiro, Lekaruaki families among others saw their herds numbering 3700 disappearing to an unknown location.

Sanigo Lepôrole narrates how heavily armed raiders numbering 500 attacked them from all directions using sophisticated weapons; M16, G3, AK47, hand propelled grenades and short range artilleries…. He tells how he lost his brother before his eyes: It was him that his brother was running to save, after a cow hit by a hand grenade had fallen on Sanigo, only for his brother to fell under hail of bullets from these bloody killers…. the last words he remembers from him is “Save our mother!”

Despite all this barbarism he has seen and which is still eating him, Sanigo says he is more worried about the imminent starvation of his parents back in Naisunyai, 20km South East of Wamba town. Sanigo says with everything gone; his beloved brothers, their entire herds including those of his relatives he has known all his life, he is not able to face his parents. Her mother cannot speak. A dark cloud of sadness has fallen on their entire Naisunyai Manyatta [house]: they see the usual suspect in all this—the state. The Samburu saw themselves forcefully disarmed early this year; their cows seized up; the propaganda in the media against them; the KTN [Kenya Television Network] reports calling them waasi (rebels). Far in the North in Sere Olipi Trading Centre, the same tears are being shade on the killings on these fields.

Before Sanigo finished talking, Lasaru Leiroyia comes in all the way from the far west and before their greetings end he is quickly to start with ‘Nkiyok,’ the Samburu word for “bad news” or signifying death but this now it is not just ‘nkiyok’ but nkiyaa meaning “many deaths.” He is quick to break the bad news, the hell that broke loose in Kanapio-Naibor area of Laikipia [on Sept. 14th]. He narrates how the black hunts from the west, the Pokot [tribesmen] turned the usually beautiful savannah into a genocide scene, in fact another Wagalla [1984 massacre of Somalis by Kenyan security forces] if not Darfur! 34 people were shot dead on the spot in Nairbor, 80% of them being women and children. More than 50 others were badly injured. Unfortunately the biased Kenya media can only report 21 of them, as others left lying in this killing fields at the mercy of vultures were yet to be counted.

Lasaru’s narration was so emotional that I was not able to follow it; the only thing I remember is that he said he saw an entire Lekadaa Family wiped out. For him he is just in quasi-madness: he has walked over 100km to Oldonyiro to try to escape the calamity he witnessed.

Before I finished typing these lines everything around me looked dark, sad, so hopeless that am not yet sure whether I have well reported the experience of this people but when I learnt of this, Tina Ramme’s Blog, I knew that I found a window to let the world to know of the Genocide in slow motion in Samburuland.”