Turkana pastoralists living in Uganda should desist from cattle rustling, county commissioner Wambua Muthama has said.
Muthama said during the dry season, Turkana herders are forced to cross the border to Uganda in search of water and pasture for their livestock. When it rains, the herders raid the Karamoja in Uganda for cattle.
In September last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni signed a border peace deal backed by the United Nations Development Programme.
The deal sought to end hostilities between the Turkana, Pokot of Kenya and Karamoja of Uganda to enhance development in the region.
However, Muthama warned that cattle rustling threatens the peace deal. He said more than 40,000 Turkana pastoralists crossed into Uganda in search of water and pasture for their livestock during the recent drought.
“Karamoja people of Uganda are welcoming. Please don't steal their cattle. Drought will come again and they will not let you enter because you stole their cattle,” he said.
DISARMAMENT IN UGANDA
In July last year, the state announced a bid to take illegal firearms from the hands of civilians in the North Rift region.
It gave amnesty to residents to voluntarily surrender their guns and once it expires, the government will apply force to take them, as happened in Uganda.
The Turkana have been grazing their cattle in Uganda since 1973, when a peace pact was signed with the local Matheniko people after a series of armed cattle raids by the Turkana, according to New Vision.
In 2000, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced a disarmament programme in Karamoja sub-region. The Uganda People's Defence Forces were deployed along the borders with Kenya and Sudan.
The deployment was to protect the Karamojong from attack by fellow pastoralists tribes from Kenya and Sudan and enable them to surrender their arms in safety to the Ugandan authorities.
Since then, the Karamoja of Uganda have been ready for a peace deal to enhance development with the Turkana (Turkana county) and Pokot (West Pokot) of Kenya, with whom they share a border.