We should have tasked Ruto to address this when he visited the region as the DP

BY: Fuad Abdirahman

An amateur photograph showing details of what was discovered in Mandera Thursday. (Courtesy: Facebook)

Northern Kenya resident are still facing assassinations, deaths, indiscrimination and massacres.The latest one being the 12 graves found on the outskirt of Mandera town. Extrajudicial killing is a common place in the former North Eastern counties allegedly committed by Kenyan security agencies as a way to counter terror attacks in the country. At least 49 people have been reported as missing.

A dreaded police unit— the Anti-Terror Police Unit—which receives funding from Britain, Israel and the US has allegedly abducted and murdered scores of terror suspects in the recent months. Al Jazeera English has reported that Kenya runs a death squad that targets terror attacks.
According to the Kenya National Commission of Human Rights (KNHCR), the security agencies carry out violence and extrajudicial killings against terror suspects. Others have vanished and their whereabouts still remain unknown.

The Deputy President William Ruto was on the weekend in Garissa where he met with the local leaders. In his visit, he lauded the people of the region for their cooperation with the police force, but the ongoing extrajudicial killing will betray his visit.

The latest incidents in Mandera has attracted nationwide coverage, with twitter users taking the government to account.
Pictures of what appears to be a female victim lying, hands tied to her right leg circulated on the social media. In another picture, a person with no gloves on is seen digging out with his bare hands. While in another graphic photo, a leg is exposed and the other part of the body still buried as someone tries to dig out the remains of what appears to be a man.
According to Ali Awdol, a human right activist who works with civil societies in Garissa told Nep Journal that one woman has been identified so far. The woman, whom we managed only to get her first name as Isnino, was reportedly picked by people who identified themselves as police driving in an unmarked Toyota Probox.
The recent graves were identified when herders witnessed a “burial’ exercise being carried out by non-locals at the outskirts of Mandera called Lethi which is 35 kilometers off Mandera town. The Area MCA, Hon Feisal Abdinoor organized the public and they went to report the matter to the police. Abdinoor is a vocal figure in the campaign against enforced disappearances. He told me in my visit to Mandera while participating in the Walk of Hope campaign that his people were in between rock and a hard surface. Efforts to contacts him were not possible.
Feysal spoke to a local fm and asked Mandera residents to come in large number today (Monday) while digging the graves. The identified bodies were missing for three days.

The writer is an activist and a student of Journalism at Nairobi University