Guns recovered from Kenyan. Courtesy pic
A Ugandan military court has sentenced 32 Kenyan cattle rustlers to 20 years in jail on charges of illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of ammunitions. The convicts were arrested recently in the ongoing fight against cattle rustlers in Karamoja sub-region.
Uganda military and police have been conducting operations in area since July 2021 to disarm hundreds of cattle rustlers within in the area while many others come from across borders of Turkana in Kenya and South Sudan.
More than 21,000 cattle rustlers also known as warriors have been arrested since July 2021. In addition, Ugandan forces have killed at least 700 suspected cattle rustlers but also the opponents have killed unspecified number of soldiers, police officers and civilians.
Uganda and Kenyan residents in Karamoja and Turkana have respectively paid of the price of warriors’ presence in their areas as many have been killed, injured and their animals are looted day and night.
Government and security officers from the two countries have held several meetings to have a unified approach to dealing with the insurgencies in the two areas. While in Uganda the cattle raiders are often referred to as cattle rustlers or warriors, in Kenya they are known as bandits.
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Col Deo Akiiki, the Uganda military deputy police spokesperson, explained that the sentenced Kenyans contradicted section seven of the Army’s Act 2005. The convicts are now jailed at Moroto Government Prison which is heavily guarded by all security agencies following the 2020 escape of 214 inmates.
Colonel Benard Arinaitwe Tuhame presided over the court sitting which convicted and sentenced the culprits. The details show that the convicts are all residents of Orum Subcounty, Lodwar District, Turkana county, in Kenya.
Ugandan security on Easter Eve conducted a successful cordon and search operation in general areas of Lokiriaut, Nadunget Sub-county where the Turkana Pastoralists now the convicts had constructed temporal Kraals with purposes of accessing pastures and water for their animals.
In the operation, Ugandan forces recovered 31 SMG riffles and the owners of the illegal guns were immediately arrested. So far, over 700 guns have been recovered from cattle rustlers from Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan.