Cattle-rustling and the politics of business in Kenya
NAIROBI: Cattle raiding in Kenya is often viewed in the legitimising context of tradition, climate change and resource conflict, but increasingly it has much more to do with organised crime meeting a rising demand for meat, and political violence resulting from a new devolutionary constitution.
Cattle rustling in Kenya’s Turkana district has become big business as demand for meat increases. Photo: Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/IRIN
The human cost of raids is immense: hundreds are killed every year and many thousands forcibly displaced.
Two sources within the Anti-Stock Theft Unit, a division of the Kenya police charged with preventing cattle theft, told IRIN that an estimated 580 people were killed between January 2012 and January 2014 as a result of cattle raids.
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