The Matheniko of Moroto, Jie of Kotido, and neighboring Turkana from Kenya have resolved to establish a joint kraal as one of the ways of ending the endless cattle raids.
The elders of the three rival pastoral communities resolved this during their meeting held at Kobebe grazing area in Moroto district on Sunday. They also resolved to arrest anyone crossing to their kraal with a firearm and hand them over to security forces.
The three communities have been locked up on cross raids for some time, not until last week when the 40 Jie rustlers walked 70 kilometers from Kotido to Moroto asking forforginess from the matheniko of Moroto.
Ezekel Emanikor, a Turkana pastoralist grazing his livestock in Kotido district, says that they have lost alot of livestock due to what he called stupidity in their communities.
“We are resolving this and we must respect it. Let’s not start again,” he warned other pastoralists. Mathew Lokut from Kotido district said that some people took advantage of their conflict and joined to steal their livestock.
“If we didn’t start conflict among ourselves, we would have a huge number of animals. But now look at our status, we have remained with nothing,”he said. John Robert Adupa Akiki, the LC 3 chairperson of Lotisan sub-county, has welcomed the move by the pastoralists.
“That’s has been our cry as leaders because we have not had time to sit in the office and manage office activities apart from running up and down tracking stolen animals,” he said.
David Koryang, the Moroto LC V Chairperson, said the resolution of the pastoralists to have a joint kraal for their animals in Kobebe in Moroto was their decision and urged other leaders to respect it. “I think our people have realised that they were getting nothing from the conflicts now they are coming together which is great,” he said…..URN
