LODWAR: The Turkanas are one of the smaller of Kenya’s 44 tribes, inhabiting the county of Turkana in the remote far north bordering South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Turkana is also the second-largest county by land mass in Kenya, a vast scrubland, long neglected by successive governments based in the capital Nairobi, but counting on future oil production to start making progress.
Turkana is the poorest county among 47 in Kenya; the Kenya National Statistics office says 88 percent of the people in Turkana live below the poverty level, compared with 45 percent nationally.
In Lodwar, the county headquarters, there is electricity and a few kilometers of tarmac roads, but the main routes out of town are in a state of disrepair. Many Turkanas live in tiny huts in villages without running water or electricity.
Illiteracy is high. Only half the school-age children in Turkana are enrolled in primary school, well below the national average of 92 percent, according to the charity Save the Children. The adult literacy rate in the county is 20 percent.
The region is very dry and some parts are very insecure. Small arms find their way through porous borders with unstable neighboring countries like South Sudan. The main economic activity for the Turkana, who have maintained most of their cultural traditions like distinctive dressing due to the decades isolation, is the rearing of cattle, goats, sheep and camels.
The animals are a sign of wealth and a source of respect in the community. They are traded in the main livestock market in Lodwar, and sometimes used to pay the price of a bride.
There is no production of food in the entire county. All fresh food in Lodwar is trucked in from Kitale, a town in the country’s breadbasket in the Rift Valley.
Oil was discovered in Lokichar, 90 km from Lodwar, in 2012, and most locals hope the start of oil output in 2021 will accelerate development.
Kenya’s poverty-stricken Turkana district dreams of oil wealth
Kenya’s poverty-stricken Turkana district dreams of oil wealth
US border agent shoots and wounds two people in Portland
- The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement
A US immigration agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Thursday, leading local officials to call for calm given public outrage over the ICE shooting death of a Minnesota woman a day earlier.
“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” Portland police chief Bob Day said in a statement.
The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The statement said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over the agents. In response, DHS said, “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the circumstances of the incident.
Portland police said that the shooting took place near a medical clinic in eastern Portland. Six minutes after arriving at the scene and determining federal agents were involved in the shooting, police were informed that two people with gunshot wounds — a man and a woman — were asking for help at a location about 2 miles (3 km) to the northeast of the medical clinic.
Police said they applied tourniquets to the man and woman, who were taken to a hospital. Their condition was unknown.
The shooting came just a day after a federal agent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car in Minneapolis.
That shooting has prompted two days of protests in Minneapolis. Officers from both ICE and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the United States as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While the aggressive enforcement operations have been cheered by the president’s supporters, Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the posture as an unnecessary provocation.
US officials contend criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists have increasingly used their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement his city was now grappling with violence at the hands of federal agents and that “we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”
He called on ICE to halt all its operations in the city until an investigation can be completed.
“Federal militarization undermines effective, community-based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region,” Wilson said. “I will use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
