By Adia Jildo
The young girl and boy who were abducted by cattle herders in Ayii a week ago were found dead.
The 16-year-old mother of a 2-month’s-old baby identified as Lalam was abducted by cattle herders on Thursday 3rd of March 2022.
The body of the young girl was later discovered by community youth and buried on 6th Saturday.
According to a community member, he said the body was got after three days when she died.
“They raped the girl and beat to death. It was after three days that we were able to get her and the soldiers helped us and we buried her,” he said.
“Since that day the young boy died, the boy was not buried. They stayed near there and you cannot reach because of fear of being attacked,” said Mark Okumu Choruba a community member in area.
Otto Martin Leonard said people ran to the centre for safety without any burial taking place. He added that the cattle herders interrupted the burial activity.
“The first man who was shot dead was in a far distance to the other two, some youth went and got the corpse of the first one and we started digging the grave, later we went and got the young boy and put him in a house away from where the grave was,” he said
He stated that the herders interrupted the digging taking people’s goats from the area forcefully while firing bullets.
“The 3rd day in the morning, we decide to continue with digging the grave faster and buried the first boy. We could not collect the ten-year-old from that house where we left him,” he described.
Pole-pole Benjamin said the case of rape has become rampant in areas of Magwi county where cattle herders have been grazing.
“This is rampant, all this time when cattle herders have been in this area of Agoro, Moli and all the other places where cattle herders are in. That is their habit already,” he said.
Benjamin added that the level of insecurity has greatly affected the livelihood of people hence taking refuge to secure places such as camps.