Author: Melissa Maclean

Last week, over 30,000 cattle flooded the conserved plains of Laikipia, Kenya, as armed semi-nomadic pastoralists stormed tourist huts and grazing fields.  

In early January, around 10,000 nomadic herders took their first attempt to drive their cattle into the settled land. However, the big hit came last week when herders returned with spears and automatic weapons, which they used to burn down huts, and slaughter animals on the way.

Laikipia, a Kenyan county planted northeast of the Great Rift Valley, is home to conservancies, private properties, and endangered wildlife.

Tensions between pastoralists and settlers are nothing new to the Kenyan county. However, some hold the belief that the invasions are thought to be a direct result of a drought that Laikpia experienced last year.

This is the perspective of Matthew Lempurkel, Laikipia’s North MP.  “People are struggling over the available water and pasture for their livestock, which is our livelihood,” he reported in Kenya’s The Star this week. Pastoralists depend upon fertile grazing fields for their livestock’s survival, and when water becomes scarce, grass becomes scarce as well. According to Kenyan cabinet secretary, Mwangi Kiunjuri, it was expected that 1.3 million Kenyans would be affected by the drought. The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) confirmed this estimate, and added that the Samburu and Pokot communities were among the most vulnerable, which is where the invading herders come from.

However, after the attacks this week, some are starting to believe in an underlying motive. In 2008, Kenya experienced a violent political episode between the current president, Mwai Kibaki, and the opposed candidate, Taila Odinga. One of the landowners believes that this invasion is a result of the political tension spilling over. “This was all planned years ago, and is designed to peak in the run-up to the elections…Votes in exchange for grass and land grabs, the seizure of Laikipia by outsiders and the expulsion of rival tribes, ranchers and conservancies.”

Another issue that the settlers are taking with this case is the indiscriminate killing of wildlife. According to reports, the herders have gone so far as to kill animals from Big Five, including six African elephants, lions, decapitated zebras, and even household dogs.

“Twenty years of time, effort, sweat, money… it’s fallen apart in two weeks, destroyed,” says conservation manager, Josh Perrett.

“Before, you would see elephant, a few hundred head of buffalo, Jackson’s hartebeest, oryx, Grant’s gazelle, impala. Now you see thousands of head of cattle, a lot of sheep and goats.”

One of the larger wildlife conservancies, who depends on donor funds to safeguard its wildlife, has already canceled a $5 million investment due to fears about the future of its wildlife. Another sanctuary for the endangered black rhino is also under serious threat.

On the other side, Max Graham, CEO of Space For Giants, attempted to explain these killings in a statement he gave last week. He said,“First, the herders are coming into conflict with elephants at water points, and shooting at them to scare them away. Second, some of these herders now in Laikipia, but not indigenous to the area, are traditionally hunters: to kill an elephant is a rite of passage in their culture.”

However, despite the relocation and devastation to wildlife, residents are also being injured in the process, including one death reported last week.

President Kenyatta has since ordered all invading herdsmen to leave the Laikipia area, but the government has yet to successfully halt the invasions.

Three cities, three attacks, one perpetrator—last week Europe and the Middle East experienced a new form of “reign of terror.” From car bombings to gunpoint, the cities of Beirut, Baghdad, and Paris were no short of escape. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, formally known as ISIS, has officially claimed responsibility for these attacks.

On Thursday night, Beirut, Lebanon went up in flames after a double suicide bombing occurred in the streets of a suburban shopping district. Over 200 were wounded in the attack and at least 41 reported as dead. BBC news remarks this bombing as the “deadliest the capital has seen with the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990. “

Witnesses described their experience of the attack, “I’d just arrived at the shops when the blast went off. I carried four bodies with my own hands, three women and a man, a friend of mine,” a civilian, Zein al-Abideen Khaddam, told his local television.

In response to this attack, Prime Minister Tammam Salam sent a statement to the country by which he declared the attacks “unjustifiable.” He encouraged Lebanon to take up unity amidst the attempts to bring discord to the country. U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, also urged peace for those attending the Syrian peace talks that would occur later that weekend.

Just hours after the Beirut attack, two other suicide bombings occurred in the city of Baghdad, Iraq. The first explosion went off at a funeral held for a Shia fighter in the Al-Ashara al-Mubashareen mosque, in south Baghdad. A total of 21 were killed, in addition to 41 others who were critically wounded. Later that day, a roadside bomb also went off at a Shia shrine that killed at least five and wounded 15 others. ISIS has taken responsibility for both of these occurrences.

A statement distributed on a pro-ISIS social media account claimed that the aim of Friday’s attacks was “revenge for our monotheist brothers in al-Fallujah, al-Anbar, and Salahaldin,” referring to the Iraqi military operations to retrieve land they had lost to ISIS.

In closing the symphony of terror, ISIS militants conducted six last gun and bomb attacks across Paris, France on Friday night. It was the deadliest terrorist attack that Europe has seen since the Madrid train bombings in 2004. Paris prosecutor, Francois Molins, reported a death toll of at least 129 people, in addition to the other 352 wounded in the entirety of the attacks. According to CNN, seven terrorists were killed in the bombing. However, ISIS claimed eight perpetrators were involved in the operation. This led Mollins to release a statement cautioning the nation that the “threat may still be on.”

The first and deadliest attack occurred in the Bataclan concert hall, which totaled 89  

causalities.  It was reported that three attackers with assault rifles entered the concert and opened fired. They then proceeded to take the audience hostage and systematically shoot them in front of the stage, after delivering a brief address on ISIS.

In response to the terror, French president, Francois Hollande, declared a state of emergency across France in hopes of both limiting mobility and implementing zones of security and protection. The French government also responded with airstrikes to bomb Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold in Syria. However, there was much backlash towards the government on this rash decision.

The situation took another complex turn when one of the terrorist’s was found to be a Syrian refugee. This not only unveiled a new set of debates in the Syrian Refugee Crisis, but also gave way to increased ill-tempered feelings amongst local civilians towards the marginalized group, though the terrorist was only a diminutive representation of the entire refugee population. But the opposing argument lies with the issue of hopelessness. Due to their vulnerability, the idea of thousands of hopeless, refuged, young men makes for an easy opportunity to attain “cheap recruits.” Whether this is true in the case of Syria, the disagreement lies more with the response to it.  While some believe this calls for resettlement, others see as a chance for internal progressive projects.
Continual Group Twenty (G20) meetings will be held in Turkey to discuss plausible action plans for all three terror attacks. As for the U.S., President Obama has agreed to expand intelligence sharing with France in an effort to better combat terrorism. The discussion will continue into the week until an agreement is met.

On Saturday, October 3, airstrikes destroyed an Afghan Doctors Without Borders hospital in the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan. Casualties were numbered at 22—three of whom were children—in addition to 37 others who were injured.

Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as it is known internationally, is a non-profit, humanitarian organization designed to deliver emergency aid to people of all race, ethnicity, and color around the world. After hearing of the airstrike, president of the organization, Meinie Nicolai, stated in an interview with the Guardian that “this attack is abhorrent and a grave violation of international humanitarian law.” She further stated how they “demand total transparency from coalition forces” and “cannot accept that this horrific loss of life will simply be dismissed as ‘collateral damage’.”

At the exact time of the hospital attack, the U.S. military was supposedly conducting an airstrike in Kunduz. President Obama immediately released a statement on the matter promising “the Department of Defense has launched a full investigation, and we will await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgment as to the circumstances of this tragedy.” He ended by stating that they should “expect a full accounting of the facts and circumstances.”

A week prior to the airstrike, the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement, overthrew the city through means of force.  The Afghan government fought back and regained power for a short while thereafter, but as of Sunday morning, the Taliban recaptured it once again. Al Jazeera reported over 100 deaths as a result of this political overthrow.

It was also reported the MSF hospital was unknowingly an epicenter for Taliban negotiations and attacks.  The now acting governor, Hamdullah Danishi, suggested this would give warrant to the attack. Danishi further supported the attack by stating how “the hospital campus was 100 percent used by the Taliban,” and how the “hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there…” according to Washington Post.

The United Nations viewed this event differently and responded with backlash towards the U.S. military. “I condemn in the strongest terms the tragic and devastating air strike on the Médecins sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz early this morning, which resulted in the deaths and injury of medical personnel, patients and other civilians,” said Nicholas Haysom, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Though it is still unclear whether the U.S. military is responsible for the attack, the majority has directed  their accusations toward  the U.S., whether accurate or not. A witness of the attack describes the event in an interview with the Guardian news, “I was inside my office. Around 2 a.m., the plane started bombing the main building of MSF. It lasted one and a half hours. After 3.30 a.m., I came out from my office and saw all of the hospital was on fire.”

Those injured in the event have since been evacuated to a town adjacent to Kunduz. However, the death toll is still rising. MSF has also fully withdrawn from the city, and is unsure about their future in Kunduz. They stated the hospital is beyond repair from the airstrike damage, and would thus need time and finances before the thought of reinstituting.
U.S. Department of Defense and Afghan government will continue investigations until further notice.

One dead and over 141 students injured as a result of a false terrorist alarm on the Garissa University College campus last Sunday, April 13.

According to CBS news, an electrical transformer exploded in the school at around 5 a.m., which led students to believe it was yet another attack by Islamic extremist group, al-Shabaab. Earlier that week, al-Shabaab had stormed the halls of the university and murdered students en masse.

Thus, when the students heard the sound of the transformer explode, it immediately sparked a panic and eventual outburst of screams coming from the girl’s wing. These screams quickly escalated and spread to the rest of the building, which ultimately led to a stampede leading out of the building.

The University’s Vice Chancellor, Pete Mbithi, affirmed to the press that the explosion was nothing more than an unforeseen mishap in the electrical system. According to Mbithi, “There was no attack, but because of what happened in Garissa the other day they mistook it for an attack.” He later confirmed with ABC News that this was entirely unrelated to the recent terrorist attacks by al-Shabbab.

But despite the causation, the effects remained the same. After the students heard the explosions of the transformer, they began to take any means of escaping—running, hiding, and in some cases, jumping.

While some students only had to jump a few feet from their window, others went so far as to jump from the fifth floor. Most students executed this jump successfully, however, one was not so fortunate. This third-year male, attempted to jump from his window on the fifth floor, but could not hold up against the strength of the stampede below and was killed by means of trampling.

The stampede also impacted and hurt the crowd below. As a result, 141 students were injured total from this false alarm.

Just a week before the incident, al-Shabaab executed an attack on Garissa University College, which killed a total of 147 people, according to Kenya’s National Disaster Operation Center.

It was said that al-Shabbab showed up before sunrise and began massacring a prayer gathering happening at the college. The gunmen then proceeded to shoot whomever was in their way, with the exception of people of their own faith, Islam.

According to one account, the gunmen separated the hostages based on their religion and then freed those who were Muslim, leaving the rest to face their fate. The attack resulted in a multitude of injuries in addition to the 147 murdered.

According to the Mail & Guardian Africa, it was “obvious that the recent attacks have hurt the students both physically and psychologically.” In other words, the attack was only a minor portrayal of the great fear that still lingered in the hearts and minds of the students.

Garissa University College was established in 2011 near the eastern border of Kenya as the only public university in the region, according to ABC news. Because of the proximity, the school is only ninety miles from the Somalia border. This lays another issue due to the ongoing border issues between Kenya and unrest in Somalia.

Since the event, high relief and security has since been implemented to help cope with this issue.