Samburu County Commissioner Henry Wafula said many locals still own illicit guns.
This comes after the Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki on April 12 told the Parliament that there are still cases of banditry despite the operation because a small number of bandits have been able to hide in plain sight by masking their presence amongst civilians.
“We have been able to dominate the permanent abodes where the suspected bandits were hiding whenever they steal livestock, but when we issued out the vacation notice to residents, some of these criminals could have mixed with the population,” said the CS.
This was in reference to a decree he issued on March 13 ordering residents in parts of the North Rift to vacate the region to allow the government room to weed out bandits.
“Because security forces cannot be everywhere and guard every homestead they (bandits) are making sporadic raids, sometimes successful but we have prevented and thwarted attacks and even recovered livestock on a daily basis.”
He revealed the state’s plans to deploy more law enforcers.
“Whenever they will be called on the security agents will remain there for as long as Kenya exists to ensure that this problem does not occur because previously we have done an operation and as soon as there is some semblance of tranquillity we recall the security agencies,” said Kindiki.
“We are up-scaling the numbers of security agents we have. We are doubling them, and as I have announced, this deployment will not cease with the end of the operation.”
Wafula urged those still in possession of illicit firearms to surrender near a police station or any administration.
