Woman pushes for intermarriages to end animosities in banditry-prone areas

A lady from Baringo County is pushing for intermarriages between warring communities in the banditry-prone North Rift region in a bid to end perennial animosities.

Ms Rebecca Lomong Rutto who has been leading peace efforts in the region is from the Pokot community, but married to a Tugen.

Ms Lomong says that she wants to use marriage as one of the factors to end the perennial cattle rustling menace which has left hundreds dead over the years.

“I want to be the bridge between the communities. I will reach out to them for them to co-exist peacefully. God knows why he put us in one region,” Ms Lomong told AVDelta News in an interview.

She said her other main focus will be economic empowerment of the communities to embrace alternative income generating activities and discard retrogressive cultural practices.

She says that having served in a humanitarian organisation and the Baringo County government, she has come face-to-face with the problems facing the people in the vast North Rift region.

“Our people lack economic empowerment. County governments in the region need to come up with policies to empower the people and support education by sponsoring children from poor families,” she said.

She is also using her resources to end conflicts as a result of scramble for limited resources during the dry season by reaching out to county governments and other humanitarian organisations for provision of clean water through drilling of boreholes.

“Our people should be empowered to embrace education, FGM eradication, and discourage early marriages through trainings and improving our people's living standards,” she asserts.

According to Ms Lomong, what the youth who have been wreaking havoc by raiding other communities need is to be taken to school and be given alternative forms of generating livelihoods.

“County governments in the region should also come up with rules and enforcement to ensure perpetrators of cattle rustling are brought to book and victims get justice. Together with like-minded leaders we can fix the insecurity in our region once and for all,” said Ms Lomong who unsuccessfully vied for Baringo County Woman Representative seat in the last elections.

In her peace mission, Ms Lomong is also seeking to know the motive of the attacks which have become fatal compared to the past where bandits could only steal livestock without killing.

“In the past, we were made to believe that cattle rustlers are only after stealing cattle but recently, we've seen them kill even a defenseless woman with her three day old baby. They kill a father - a family breadwinner and leave his children to suffer. It doesn't seem to me to be heroic of any kind,” she said.

“We need to collectively, as a region take a bold step to stop this habit of banditry. People will go on purchasing more and more illicit destructive weapons than what they have now which will do nothing but worsen the situation,” added the soft-spoken lady.

According to Ms Lomong, in Baringo County for instance, there's very little hope for the future of warring Tugen and Pokot communities unless a solution is sought to find some ways of putting an end to the perennial cattle rustling menace.

“There is need for new ways of thinking and new ways of feeling. We need to learn to think of our neighbours as potential allies and business partners and not as active enemies,” said Ms Lomong.

“Time has come for our people to be empowered to learn not to hate, it's a difficult lesson after all the millennia during which we have allowed our bad passions to run rampant. It is a collective responsibility if we want to build our economy (prosperity) as a county and a country,” she added.

Ms Lomong has also been reaching out to elders and religious elders in a bid to preach peace between warring communities.

“We are blinded by useless competition and by the bad emotions that competition produces. If only we could realize that we are one family with one identity of interest. This competition must be dismissed so as we can utilize our God given resources jointly as the people of the North Rift,” she said.

Many parts of the North Rift region, especially Kerio Valley, have not known peace for many years which has resulted in the death of hundreds of people.

More than 100 people including security personnel were killed in 2023 alone, prompting the government to term six(6) banditry-prone counties in the region among them Turkana, West Pokot, Elgeyo-Marakwet, Baringo, Laikipia, and Samburu as 'disturbed and dangerous' and rolled out a massive security operation.

Perhaps the worst in the areas history is last year's cold blood killing of three(3) family members, including a two-year old child at Chemoe area in Baringo North sub-County.

In the attack, Victor Yego,30, his wife Valentine Yego,28, and their child died after being sprayed with bullets, while other passenger, a Form Three student and two(2) motorcyclists sustained serious gunshot wounds.