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Nominated Senator Abshiro Halakhe has asked Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i and Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai to address the rampant bandit attacks at Madowale on the border of Wajir and Isiolo counties.

In the latest incident, suspected bandits killed three women, two men and a child and injured  scores of others  in a dawn attack in Madowale village, Bassa location, Merti sub-county.  

The attackers also vandalised a borehole used by the local Borana community before fleeing.

 “Let me convey my deepest condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones,”  she said in a press statement yesterday.

 “In the same breath, I condemn these heinous acts, which are now snowballing into a devastating crisis if the perpetrators are not stopped in their tracks,” she noted.

“Besides losing lives, with our women and children being the greatest casualties of these senseless but well-orchestrated attacks, our county’s economy is on a drastic meltdown,” she said.

Mental anguish

The Senator noted that destruction of livelihoods and consistent disruption of economic activities by bandits has left the people of Isiolo susceptible to perpetual poverty, not to mention the mental anguish.

“It is unacceptable that these incessant violent aggressions always leave a trail of blood of our people.

Leaders have been complaining over insecurity in our county but our plight is seemingly falling on deaf ears,” she claimed.

She said despite the actions taken by the government to tame the menace, it is nigh for security apparatus to step up and prevent the attacks because county’s security agencies are always one step behind the bandits.

In a separate interview with People Daily yesterday, Isiolo North MP Hassan Odha condemned the attack.

He lamented the incessant attacks on the Isiolo-Wajir border in the recent past that he claimed are intended to displace the local Borana community.

According to him, the sponsored bandit attacks target strategic boreholes and the community’s grazing fields.

 “We are tired of being killed by bandits on our land and call on the Ministry of Interior to deploy Rapid Deployment Unit and General Service Unit officers to all strategic bore holes in Bassa and Yamicha locations,” Odha said.