Tuesday, March 15, 2005 Posted: 7:46 AM EST (1246 GMT)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Assailants armed with guns and swords shot and hacked to death 22 people, mainly women and children, from a rival clan in northeastern Kenya Tuesday, officials said.
Security forces later killed 12 suspects during an operation to restore order in Mandera, a district troubled by clashes between the Garre and Murule clans, said police spokesman Jaspher Ombati. The clans, two of the ethnic Somali communities that dominate northeastern Kenya, traditionally fight over access to pasture and water for their cattle.
At least 22 people were killed and three injured when Murule fighters launched the pre-dawn raid on a Garre village as residents slept in their homesteads, Ombati said.
Officials said preliminary information indicates that the Murule fighters crossed into Kenya from Somalia, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from Mandera, officials said.
The killings could trigger revenge attacks similar to those in January in which at least 22 people were killed in a week in the region, 795 kilometers (494 miles) northeast of the capital, Nairobi.
Paramilitary and regular police officers were sent to the region to prevent further violence, Ombati said.
Large parts of the arid region are notoriously lawless, with bandits, some from neighboring Somalia, often carrying out attacks.
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