| | Before dawn on 12 July 2005, about 1,000 heavily armed bandits made a series of raids in the Didigalgalo-Turbi area some 130 kilometres from Marsabit Town. At least 53 people, including 21 primary school children, were killed. The bandits left a trail of destruction at the trading centre and Turbi boarding primary school and burned to the ground the nearby group of dwellings. Area residents narrated how the armed raiders surrounded them and went for the primary school where Class Eight pupils had gone for their morning preps. They recounted how nine pupils from the primary school were sprayed with bullets in cold blood as they huddled together on the dusty floor of the houses where they had sought refuge. An elderly woman residing in one of the two houses was also killed. Others were hacked to death by panga-wielding raiders whose intentions appear to have been aimed at massacring the entire village. An infant had his head smashed on a rock. More than 100 people were badly injured some and were rushed to hospital in Marsabit Town by traders. |
