Some 20 Police officers died on November 1 during a security operation in Kapedo.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta says the country will take firm action against those who killed 20 Police officers and two civilians during a security operation in Kapedo, in the arid and impoverished region of Lake Turkana which is prey to regular raids and score-settlings between rival communities  on November 1, Mail§ Guardian Africa reported. Uhuru Kenyatta visited the site of the ambush in northern Kenya with Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku.

Saturday’s attack was just one in a series of attacks carried out against the police and security officers in the area. Last week, five people, including three police officers, were killed in another attack in the Kapedo area, Mail § Guardian Africa reported citing Police sources.  The worse attacks came two years ago when more than 40 Police officers who had been chasing cattle thieves were killed around 100 km further north, in an ambush. 

Conflicts between communities in the area are said to be aggravated by diminishing water supplies and grazing areas as it is mainly populated by nomadic herders. Local police, Mail§ Guardian Africa says, are notoriously under-equipped and can find themselves outgunned because of increasing numbers of illegal firearms appearing in the area.

Last weekend was indeed a deadly one in Kenya with the army saying it had repelled a machete attack on a military barracks in a tourist resort near Mombassa on October 2, killing six assailants. The army said in a statement that about a dozen youths tried to break into the barracks in Nyali and soldiers responded, killing five of them and the sixth was pursued and shot dead in a nearby forest.