Two children were on Wednesday killed in North Pokot following the explosion of a device they picked unknowingly while grazing.
Locals of Nakuyen village, situated along the Kenya-Uganda border, said they are living in fear following the incident.Paul Arong’o said his children, aged 10 and 9 years, picked the RDX explosive and started playing with it before it blew up.
“They hit the device with stones and after some few minutes, the device exploded killing them on the spot,” he said.
Arongo’o was unable to recognize his children after the unfortunate incident and is now demanding compensation from the government.
“The device belongs to the government and they should compensate me for losing my children.””The army should have collected the devices after they conducted an operation in the area,” he said.
Pokot South MP David Pkossing asked the Interior ministry to comb the area with a view to recovering explosives used by the army in 1984 during the ‘Lotirir’ operation.
“There was a major operation conducted by the army in the region to flush out cattle rustlers.”
“Many explosives were used but since then, the army never came back to comb the region and collected the unused ones,” the lawmaker said.
He called on the government to compensate the family since the death was a result of negligence by the troops.