As one enters the dusty town of Isiolo on the Eastern part of Kenya, one cannot help noticing the many shops in the busy town closed. The characteristically busy market day is slow with people milling around in small groups conversing in low tones.

 

The once very hospitable town now views visitors with suspicion as a result of the heightened insecurity that has led to close to 20 deaths in the last two months. Every so often, trucks of police traverse the town in a bid to restore peace in the cosmopolitan district.

Seven kilometers in the interior of Isiolo East District in Gambela sub location, one of the hotspots that have seen three people killed as a result of inter – tribal conflict in the last week alone. Halima Hassan, 52, a mother of five sits next to his thatched hut plaiting her granddaughter’s hair. Her distant looks gives her away as she tries playing with the granddaughter.

Halima shares the small hut with her three children and three grandchildren.  She later tells the writer that the hut belongs to her neighbor and she has been putting up at the makeshift structure for the last two weeks after her three huts were destroyed by a rival tribe residing in the area.

 

All her belongings were burnt to the ground and her goats, the only source of livelihood that her late husband left her with two months earlier were taken away.

"I have nothing to call my own except my family. I had barely come to terms with my husband’s death two months ago and then this happens. All my 88 heads of goats were taken; our clothes, cooking pots and the little money I had left were all burnt." Says Halima in a coarse voice as a result of constant  crying.

Rashid Hassan, 14, Halima’s last born child and the only son has been forced to abandon school to support the family after the raid. He escaped the attack narrowly when the raiders opened fire on their classroom and he fled through the window.  He burns charcoal and sells it by the roadside.

“We were going about studying and at about 10.00 am, we heard our classroom door being shut from the outside. A few seconds later we heard people yelling and in a matter of seconds bullets started flying in all directions in the classroom.” Said Hassan.

“I broke a window and managed to escape but one of my colleagues was not very luck. He was shot on the leg and he cannot walk anymore,” adds Hassan.

Insecurity in the area has been heightened by the drought currently ravaging the area. The area has not received sufficient rain for the last three years. It is estimated that the predominantly pastoralists from the area have lost close 170,000 heads of cattle this year.

“Cattle raids have traditionally been carried out after rains when there is plenty of pasture and water but this time round they are taking place during dry spells; this is not a normal occurrence. " says Mohammed Ahmed, an ActionAid field officer in Isiolo.

Raids are taking place as pastoralists try to compensate for their dead livestock. Cattle rustling has been a traditional practice for some pastoral communities but the rustling taking place now is necessitated by desperation to get food.

The farming community in the area has also been forced out of the district as the conflicts take a life of its own. Proliferation of arms in the district has been attributed to porous border   points of Somali.  The Government has increased police patrols in the area in the recent past.

ActionAid which is the lead agency for relief food distribution suspended its operations for one week last month because of banditry attacks.

 
“We had to stop relief food distribution as most transporters declined to transport food to conflict prone areas. We had to solicit services of armed escort to distribute the food,” said Mohamed.

“We intend to start this month’s distribution this coming week but we are afraid our budgets will not be sufficient to contract armed police in all our distribution points. At this stage, we cannot risk doing the distribution without security since it’s also not safe for our relief field monitors,” added Mohamed.

ActionAid has been responding to the crisis by initiating peace meetings amongst the communities with an aim of having a cease fire. ActionAid is also the lead agency in Isiolo under the World Food Programme’s Emergency Operations (EMOP) and distributes food to a total population of 43,110.