Armed attackers burned down the main tourist lodge at the 44,000 acre Suyian conservancy on Sunday. Stores and garages were looted and international visitors staying there evacuated.
The five Anti-Stock Theft policemen guarding the lodge were overwhelmed by “scores or hundreds of attackers.
"They are young and inexperienced and could not cope,” said a Laikipia resident.
Elephants on the 44,000-acre Suyian conservancy in Laikipia county. /SUYIAN CONSERVANCY
As armed men entered Suyian with huge herds of cattle, one attacker was shot dead by police prompting a violent reaction.
The lodge has now been closed. It is the third tourist lodge in Laikipia to be closed in January after a Pokot invasion forced the closure of two lodges in the Mugie conservancy earlier this month.
Read: Pokot gunmen invade Laikipia conservancy, kill wild animals
Giraffes and lions on the 44,000-acre Suyian conservancy in Laikipia county. /SUYIAN CONSERVANCY
An estimated 10,000 pastoralists with 135,000 cattle have invaded ranches in Laikipia North in the last four months. They have been shooting wildlife including elephants as well as rustling cattle and looting property.
Suyian is owned by the Powys family who came to Kenya over 100 years ago.
The attackers are using walkie-talkies and radios. They also have ammunition from the Eldoret armoury but in Mugie, attackers also used tracer bullets that are not available on the black market.
“Rogue middle-level elements within the state are now involved in land grabbing on a massive scale of up to a million acres,” said the Laikipia resident.
He claimed that some GSU and KDF officers were assisting relatives among the invaders.
Cattle on the 44,000-acre Suyian conservancy in Laikipia county. /SUYIAN CONSERVANCY
Laikipia North MP Matthew Lempurkel denied that he was at Suyian on Sunday when the lodge was burned at around 8pm. Staff, looking down from the rocks above the lodge, thought they saw him arriving on a motorcycle and directing the attack.
"I was not there but I'm heading there now," he told the star on phone. "It is not about politics. This is due to the ongoing drought. People are struggling over the available water and pasture for their livestock which is our livelihood."
Last week while in Rumuruti, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered that all invading pastoralists should leave the Laikipia ranches. The Cabinet made the same order in October last year.
Read: Land invasion wrecks Laikipia
Elephants and cattle on the 44,000-acre Suyian conservancy in Laikipia county. /SUYIAN CONSERVANCY
The invasions of conservancies and farms over the last four months have been conducted by Samburu and Pokot from outside Laikipia. However the invasion of Suyian was by Maasai from Mukogoto. The Maasai have not been involved in the Laikipia farm invasions until now.
“These businesses had full tourist bookings for 2017 which would have earned Kenya lots of money. Now taxes will be cut and jobs will be lost. Laikipia's economy is already in a nose dive,” said the resident.
Most of the conservancies in Laikipia combine cattle ranching, tourism and wild conservation.
The 12 main conservancies in Laikipia, including Suyian, claimed in 2014 that they pumped more than Sh2 billion into the Laikipia economy in 2013.
Also read: Armed herders invade Laikipia ranch, harass elephants as tourists watch
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