The Kenya Defence Forces and police should go after only the gunmen responsible for attacks, rather than also targeting herders who carry arms only to guard their livestock, so as not to enflame the situation further.Kenya’s government, with support from donors, should deliver more humanitarian aid through cash transfers to pastoralists in counties afflicted by drought.Meanwhile, the state and its partners need to work to mitigate the consequences of future droughts. These measures should also address grievances related to land access, overgrazing and the insecurity caused by heavily armed criminal gangs. With help from external donors, Kenyan national and county authorities should take steps to reduce the drought’s impact and ease tensions. Despite a robust police and army response to local flare-ups, clashes involving herders, landowners and armed criminals continue to claim lives. The effectiveness of traditional dispute resolution mechanisms has dwindled, and existing grazing agreements are inadequate to mitigate the drought’s harmful effects, let alone stop the ensuing conflict. Local politicians, meanwhile, exploit tensions around land to rally voters. Gradual impoverishment has made young pastoralists particularly vulnerable to recruitment by crime rings, especially in Baringo county. Between 20, Kenyan herders lost at least 2.5 million head of cattle, decimating incomes and pushing some to let livestock graze on land belonging to commercial farms and conservancies. ![]() ![]() The unprecedented drought affecting the Horn of Africa has made things worse. With donors’ support, they should help pastoralist families cope with increasingly frequent climate shocks and reduce incentives for violence. Kenyan authorities should act against perpetrators of attacks but not herders armed only to protect livestock. They should keep pushing for community-led peace talks. Kenyan leaders and outside partners should step up emergency aid to drought-stricken regions and encourage sustainable grazing and migration agreements between landowners and herders. ![]() Fighting involving pastoralists, landowners, criminals and security forces has killed more than 200 people since May 2021. The conflict is longstanding, rooted in grievances over land, political disputes and semi-nomads’ impoverishment by years of state neglect, but today drought, along with cattle overstocking and the proliferation of illicit firearms, has sharpened it. Herders must now travel longer distances in search of pasture and water, which can pit them against other herders and owners of large farms and conservancies. A record-breaking drought in the Horn of Africa has fuelled violence in the north of Kenya’s Rift Valley.
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