Kenyans move into Uganda with their cattle to escape drought

KAMION, Uganda (Reuters) -- Thousands of heavily armed Kenyans have settled themselves and their hungry cattle in Uganda in recent weeks, raising fears of violent conflict in a region already afflicted by drought.

"There are about 5,000 men, women and children," Ocero Ogola, an aid worker delivering emergency food to Ugandan Dodoth and Ik tribes in the area, told Reuters.

"They have all come -- even the old, who they strap to donkeys," Ogola said.

Sitting under a tree in the tiny Ugandan border hamlet of Kamion, eight young men of the semi-nomadic Turkana tribe said they had abandoned their own arid grazing grounds in Kenya in a bid to keep their large herds of cattle, goats and sheep alive while they wait for rain.

The Turkana made a steep, difficult climb from the floor of the Great Rift Valley to Kamion, which overlooks shady woodland and long grass on the Ugandan side of the border.

A young Turkana man said that more herds were on their way from areas surrounding the remote Kenyan trading center of Oropoi.

Another aid worker who visited some of the thorn-fenced kraals the Turkana built for their animals said he had seen about 10,000 livestock there.

Kamion, a remote spot inhabited mainly by the small Ik tribe, normally acts as a buffer zone between the Turkana and Ugandan Dodoth herders, who frequently raid each other's livestock.

In February, Turkana raiders and allied Toposa from nearby Sudan killed more than 40 Dodoth and stole 3,000 cattle in an area west of Kamion.

The Ik do not own cattle, but they have suffered from raids to steal food.

The Ik, Dodoth and Turkana are at peace for the moment. But in this sparsely-populated and remote corner of Uganda, 420 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Kampala, cattle raiding is endemic and every herder carries a gun.

"For the time being, I don't think there is going to be trouble," an Ik leader said. "But if the Turkana try to take cattle from the Dodoth there will be trouble."

A young Turkana man said they planned to stay until the next rainy season, due in March.

Uganda and Kenya have taken no official steps so far to halt the movement of cattle herds across the border or disarm the herders, but the governments say they are watching the situation closely.

Rains largely failed in the region this year and thousands of people on both sides of the border are surviving on emergency food provided by the U.N. World Food Program.

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