A 47-year-old Tanzanian national was shot dead at Engiwanja village in Olmotonyi sub-location in Lolgorian area along the Trans West/Kuria border yesterday afternoon by unknown people.
Speaking to the press on Thursday , Narok County Police Commander Mr. Smollets Munyianzi said the deceased who has been identified as Kitasik Sampole, was herding his employer`s animals in Engiwanja village at around 4 pm in the afternoon, when some two unidentified men suddenly appeared and shot him thrice in the head and in the chest.
The herdsboy died on the spot.
Mr. Munyianzi said the motive of the murder is not known but police have launched a manhunt for the suspects who escaped.
The deceased hails from the area of Ngorongoro in Tanzania.
The body of the deceased was moved to St. Joseph Mission Lolgorian Hospital Mortuary for a postmortem examination pending further investigations into the incident.
This comes hardly two weeks after a 70-year-old man was shot dead and two others injured in two separate incidents in the Esoit area in Trans Mara West.
Thomas Kikonda was heading home with two other people when they were attacked earlier this month.
Kikonda was shot in the thigh and died on the way to hospital due to what was said to be excessive bleeding from the bullet wound.
In a separate but related incident, Josiah Ngeno, 28 was shot and injured on his left leg as he was resting outside his house in Mogor village in Transmara East on the material night that Kikonda trio were shot.
He was seated outside his house at 9:00 pm last night when unknown people suddenly shot at him and disappeared into the darkness.
This came as police in Narok recovered two AK 47 assault rifles with 17 rounds of ammunitions during a security operation at Esoit in the volatile Transmara area and arrested 10 people in connection with illegal weapons.
Trans Mara area has been experiencing insecurity between the two main counties living in the area and neighbouring counties where violent clashes have been experienced for some time now leading to loss of lives and destruction of property.
Some schools in area have not opened due to insecurity.
The 1,000acre Shartuka / Njipship ranches is partly to blame for the perennial ethnic flare-ups on the border of the two sub-counties as the residents complain about unfair and double allocations of these parcels of land.
The boundary disputes, cattle theft, land, water and grazing pasture have also been found to be among the main causes of the conflict between the Kipsigis and the Maasai living in the larger Trans Mara.
Recently, the Land Commission Chairman Dr. Mohammed Swazuri visited the area on a fact finding mission but is yet to make his findings public.
Various stakeholders have called on the National Land Commission to urgently resolve the land and boundary disputes.
Earlier this year, Narok County Commissioner Moffat Kangi issued a 14-day ultimatum to the residents of Trans Mara and the county to surrender all illegal firearms in their possession or face forceful disarmament, which ended recently.
This was after it was discovered that firearms were being used in the conflict.
Earlier, he banned carrying of offensive weapons including traditional Maasai rungus in the area.
“We have done our survey and know where these illegal firearms are and it’s just a matter of time before we get them,” he said.
