TSEIKURU, Kenya – The harvest was supposed to begin at sunrise. Instead, bullets came.
At least seven people were killed on Saturday, April 25, when suspected bandits stormed Kamari village in Tseikuru, Kitui County, in a brazen daylight attack that left bodies scattered on a farm and entire families fleeing into thorny bushland with nothing but their lives.
According to police reports, the attackers—believed to be herders of Somali origin—descended on the unsuspecting villagers as they worked their land. Without warning, the assailants opened fire, killing six men and one woman on the spot. One man survived but is now fighting for his life at Tseikuru Level IV Hospital with gunshot wounds.
Then came the flames.
Homes Reduced to Ashes
As the last gunshot echoed across the parched landscape, the attackers torched several houses, leaving dozens of families without shelter. The marauders then fled into the sprawling Mwingi Game Reserve using a Toyota Probox—a vehicle that vanished into the wilderness as quickly as the violence began.
Kitui County Commissioner Erastus Mbui confirmed the grim toll, his voice heavy with the weight of yet another community shattered.
But the question haunting Kamari village is not just who, but why.
A Cycle of Blood
Police on the ground revealed a darker, more predictable truth: this was retaliation.
“It is retaliation after a herder from one community killed a herder from another in the game park. This appears to be a counterattack,” a senior police officer told journalists, speaking on condition of anonymity.
What began as a deadly dispute between herder factions inside the game reserve has now spilled into the villages, turning farmers into targets and homes into kindling. The cycle of blood has found new ground—and it is fertile.
As night fell on Saturday, surviving villagers did not return to their smoldering homes. They gathered their children and fled to nearby bushland, terrified that the attackers would return to finish what they started.
The Government's Next Move
The Kitui massacre is not an isolated horror. Bandit attacks have intensified across the North Rift and upper Eastern regions, ravaging Meru, Isiolo, Samburu, and Turkana counties, with livestock stolen and lives lost at an alarming rate.
In response, the government has signaled a dramatic escalation.
Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, speaking after bandits killed two locals in Meru, declared that the era of soft handling is over.
“The government of Kenya will use all instruments of war—our military, police officers, tanks, and aircraft—to confront the bandits in Nyambene,” Kindiki said, his tone unflinching.
He added that President William Ruto has issued a direct order: the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and police must suspend other duties and concentrate every asset on crushing criminal gangs in the region.
For the grieving families of Kamari village, that promise arrived one day too late.
Waiting in the Bushes
As dawn breaks over Tseikuru on Sunday, the living are not burying their dead. They are hiding from the next bullet. Men who were farmers yesterday are now sentinels on the edge of the bush. Women who cooked in kitchens now cook over open fires, watching the horizon.
The government has vowed to deploy armoured vehicles and aircraft. But for the seven dead—and for the wounded man gasping for life in a rural hospital—the only question that matters is this:
Why did it take so long?