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{
    "id": 779056,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/779056/?format=api",
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    "content": "place. Unfortunately, information available is that there has been complicity with police officers in the region. Madam Temporary Speaker, I say this because the head of one family had to go and report to the Cheptais Police Station that they were being threatened by some criminals, and he gave out their names. Information available is that the officer to whom the report was made then called the criminals and told them, “You have been reported and I am going to send the police to arrest you.” Obviously, he was telling them to move away. They not only fled and avoided the arrest, but came back three days later and wiped out the whole family. They shot the whole family – the father, mother and children – seven members of one family were killed. Madam Temporary Speaker, to date, we have reports of more than forty deaths which have been recorded in Mt. Elgon in the last four to five months. These include women and children who were killed indiscriminately. They are not targeting any person because they are economically able – other than the man who was raided because he had sold maize – they just come and wipe out a family. When you look at it, it is a pattern that is very clear that this is organized crime. Madam Temporary Speaker, whenever they strike in Mt. Elgon, they run down to the lower parts of Bungoma County, hiding in Chwele and Kimilili; scampering to Trans Nzoia in Endebess; hiding in Lwakhakha, Sirisia and fleeing to Uganda. As we speak, the number of people killed, as I have said, is more than 40. The number of people displaced so far, who have fled and are in these scattered towns along the rim of the mountain are now over 30,000. This is a very huge number; they are in Trans Nzoia, Kimilili, Kamkuya, and Chwele all the way to Lwakhakha. As they flee – you know people live on subsistence farming – they leave behind their livestock, which the criminals take away; they leave behind their farms and their only earthly possessions. They then go to markets to live destitute lives. Whenever such things happen, the biggest victims are women and children. Children are uprooted from schools and they cannot go to schools anymore. Women are uprooted from their humble surroundings and they go to live in areas where they cannot get sanitation, water and other basic needs. They then become victims of another spiral of crime, including rape and other activities that are so inhuman. Madam Temporary Speaker, I read from the media that the Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Interior and National Coordination was in Mt. Elgon yesterday. I take great exception to this because I am the Senator for Bungoma County. I represent the people of Bungoma County, who voted for me and gave me more than 400,000 votes. Regardless of my political affiliation, if the CS is visiting my county on a matter where the people who voted for me and who I represent are being butchered by criminals, the least they can do is inform me and invite me to come along. Security has no parties. We can say that the Government of the day is not doing enough and we are justified to say that. But when you are visiting a county, whether it is Laikipia, or Trans Nzoia, West Pokot or whichever other county, it is courteous to inform the elected leaders of that area."
}