50 Mandongoi families sleep in cold after bandits displace them

A section of about 50 families camp at Mandongoi Health Centre in Ngomeni Ward, Mwingi North after they were displaced by bandits./MWINGI TIMES CORRESPONDENT 

About 50 families mainly from Kiseuni and Kanyunyi villages said efforts made by the government to restore security were not good enough to to make them go back home.

Speaking to reporters at Mandongoi Health Centre in Ngomeni Ward where they have pitched a makeshift camp, they said the government should plant security officers at the border of Kitui and Tana River counties.

"We want to see security officers way past our homes and farms so that they could stop the bandits who pose as camel herders from venturing into our area to cause mayhem," said Kilonzo Martha.

Martha said that after Interior CS Kithure Kindiki visited the area and held a security meeting at Mandongoi market, a contingent of GSU was deployed.

But she lamented that the security officers were inappropriately stationed at Mandongoi market and could not protect offer protection to their homes that were 12 kilometers away in Kanyunyi village.

She said that since the bandits killed, Stephen Kiilu, a fellow villager in late November and given that the armed camel herders were still roaming the area freely and arbitrary opened fire in the night, the thought of going back home was frightening and far fetched.

"The truth is that the killing of Kiilu was one too many. We are not going back to our homes only for another of our own to be killed in cold blood by the marauding and heartless armed camel herders," she said.

She spoke a day after a Good Samaritan, Rev. Dr. Euticauls Wambua, visited

the displaced persons camp at Mandongoi Health Centre and donated food stuff to them.

Another displaced person Peter Mwenga said they were faced with imminent food crisis as they were unable to access their farms that were over 10 kilometers away from the place they had taken refuge.

"These people are starring at serious food deficiency because since they ran away from their homes, they had not returned to their farms. We will have to depend of famine relief food for some time," he said.

A local pastor Jeremiah Nyayo said that the people living in makeshift camp were facing numerous challenges among them lack of food, lack clothing  and diseases related to the cold condition they have to make do with.

He said they required donations in terms of medical service, tents and clothing to keep children warn especially in the night.

Rev. Wambua who empathized with the condition they lived in, urged them to pray earnestly for God to provide a solution to their tribulations. 

The senior pastor at the Baptist Chapel of Nairobi said he would reach out to his partners and  friends to see whether he could mobilize some support for the displaced persons.

STORY By MWINGI TIMES CORRESPONDENT