Africa-Press – Kenya. Plans are underway to establish permanent security installations in Kerio Valley, including a military and police training base akin to the Kiganjo Police Training College.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said the move is part of broader measures aimed at sustaining the newly restored peace in the once-restive, banditry-prone region.
“As part of the efforts to ensure the peace we are seeing now becomes permanent and lasting, we shall be establishing permanent security installations of different kinds—an operational base for some of the formed units and a training ground. Just as people go to Kiganjo, they must also come to Kerio,” he said.
Murkomen was speaking on Thursday at the Todo KDF Camp in Kolowa subcounty, Baringo County, during a visit to officers serving under the multi-agency Operation Maliza Uhalifu.
He was accompanied by Deputy Inspector-General of the Kenya Police Service Eliud Lagat, Deputy Inspector-General of the Administration Police Service Gilbert Masengeli, and other senior government officials.Murkomen and his team celebrated Christmas with the officers at Todo KDF Camp in Kolowa./MINA
The team celebrated Christmas with the officers and expressed appreciation for what Murkomen described as exemplary service.
He said that in the last six months alone, officers had mopped up more than 1,000 illegal firearms, contained banditry, and restored calm and normalcy across the Kerio Valley region.
Murkomen added that the government is in the process of identifying suitable land for the proposed training base, which will be used to train both military and police officers.
“The President himself, through the National Security Council, has already given direction that we need to establish training bases for security teams here in the affected areas of Kerio Valley so that this becomes part of a permanent security solution,” he said.
The Cabinet Secretary thanked the multi-agency team for their efforts in making Kerio Valley hospitable again after a prolonged period marked by bloodshed and displacement.
“I’m very happy that, because of your good job, in less than six months we have collected over a thousand guns in a very small area, and we want this to progress further as we create buffer zones,” he said.
He noted that some pockets had recently posed challenges, citing Turkwel and Kainuk, largely due to mining-related and other criminal activities, but said corrective measures were already underway.
“Turkwel was almost giving us trouble the other day, including Kainuk, because of mining and criminal activities, but work is going on now and we are going to upscale it,” he said.
Operation Maliza Uhalifu was launched in February 2023 in response to rampant banditry, livestock rustling and cattle-related violence in the Kerio Valley.
A sharp spike in attacks by heavily armed pastoralist militias had led to loss of life, displacement of families and disruption of schooling for many children.
Bandits, often armed with illegal weapons, would raid homesteads and make off with hundreds of livestock before retreating into hard-to-reach, steep and forested terrain.
