More than 100 civilians and 16 police officers have lost their lives at the hands of "marauding bandits and livestock rustling terrorists" in the Northern Rift Valley region over the past six months, the interior ministry said in a statement late Monday.
The theft of livestock or quarrels over grazing and water sources are common between cattle herding communities in northern Kenya.
"The murderous gangs have in recent days escalated their terror on innocent Kenyans and law enforcement agencies and in the process burnt down schools, police vehicles and other social amenities," the ministry said.
Hundreds of people have been forced to flee their homes, it added, declaring a national emergency and ordering citizens to surrender any illegal firearms within the next three days.
"On the 15th (of) February, 2023, the Kenya Defence Forces shall be deployed in support of the National Police Service in response to the security emergency... caused by rampant incidents of banditry," the government said in a gazetted notice published on Monday.
The deployment is subject to approval by parliament.
At least 11 people, including eight police and a local chief, were killed by cattle rustlers in September in northern Turkana county.
In November 2012, more than 40 policemen were killed in an ambush as they pursued cattle thieves in Baragoi, a remote district in Kenya's arid north.
And in August 2019, at least 12 people, including three children, were killed in two attacks in northern Kenya by cattle rustlers.
Kenya, the most dynamic economy in East Africa, is in the grip of the worst drought in four decades after five failed rainy seasons wiped out livestock and crops.
Mass trial opens in Chad over ex-strongman's death
N'Djamena (AFP) Feb 13, 2023 -
Hundreds of alleged rebels accused of "assassinating" former president Idriss Deby Itno went on trial in a Chadian court on Monday, the chief prosecutor and lawyers told AFP.
The hearings will be held behind closed doors at Klessoum prison, just southeast of the capital N'Djamena, where the suspects will also face charges of terrorism and undermining state security.
Chief prosecutor Mahamat El-Hadj Abba Nana said "over 400" were on trial, while lawyers gave a figure of 454, of whom 386 would be present for the hearings.
In early 2021, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), the most powerful of several rebel groups opposing Deby's regime, launched an offensive from its strongholds in southern Libya.
On April 20, the army said the president who had ruled Chad since 1990 had been killed while leading troops against the rebels.
His death was announced just a day after he had been declared victor of a presidential election that gave him a sixth term in office.
Despite criticism of his authoritarian rule, Deby was a key ally in the West's anti-jihadist campaign in the unstable Sahel, particularly due to the relative strength of Chad's military.
His son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby, immediately took over as head of a "transitional military council" while promising free elections within 18 months.
But last October, authorities extended the election deadline to 24 months despite international opposition, with delegates of a "national reconciliation dialogue" -- boycotted by most opposition groups -- also saying Deby would be eligible to run for the presidency.
- Courts crack down -
Chad, one of the world's poorest countries, has endured repeated uprisings and unrest since gaining independence from France in 1960.
In recent months, security forces have detained hundreds, including youths, in a crackdown on opposition protesters criticising the military junta's continued grip on power.
Prosecutors put 401 people on trial in November at the notorious Koro Toro desert prison after anti-government protests the previous month that saw dozens of people killed when police opened fire in the N'Djamena.
The government said around 50 people died in the clashes but opposition groups said the actual toll was much higher, with hundreds injured.
The Koro Toro tribunal handed down jail terms of two to three years for 262 of the detainees after just four days of hearings, prompting Chad's Bar Association of lawyers to denounce a "parody of justice".
The main leaders of Chad's opposition now live in hiding or in exile, even though the junta lifted a suspension of several opposition parties in January.
19 killed in Burkina attacks
Ouagadougou (AFP) Feb 13, 2023 -
Nineteen people, including nine volunteers with the armed forces, were killed in two attacks in jihadist-torn Burkina Faso, local inhabitants and a security source said on Monday.
Seven members of the VDP volunteer force were killed in a mass attack on Thursday in the northwestern village of Dembo, a senior official with the militia told AFP.
On Sunday, a "terrorist group" killed 12 people, including two VDP members, at Yargatenga, a village near the eastern border with Togo and Ghana, local sources said.
"This is the third time that Yargatenga has been targeted in a month," a local official said, saying the town's commissioner had been killed in an ambush on February 1.
The attack in Dembo was carried out by "around 100 armed men who surged into the village in pickups and on motorcycles, opening fire before taking on the VDP," an official with the volunteer force told AFP.
"We lost seven members in the fighting, which lasted more than three hours. Several attackers were also killed but their bodies were taken away" by the assailants, he said.
He added that a petrol shortage meant VDP units could not pursue the attackers, though a military force had arrived from Nouna, around 15 kilometres (nine miles) away, on Friday morning.
"Residents have been packing their bags since the weekend," one local in the area told AFP, saying that "terrorists" had arrived in Dembo several times since the beginning of the year "but until now they hadn't killed anyone."
The attacks brought the death toll from armed insurgents to around 60 for last week alone, up from around 50 the week before.
One of the world's poorest nations, Burkina Faso has been rocked by a jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Thousands have been killed, more than two million people have fled their homes and around 40 percent of the country lies outside the government's control.
Anger within the military at the mounting toll fuelled two coups last year.
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