Leaders in Ijara Sub County Ijara held consultative talks to deliberate on the recent Incursion by Al Shabaab militant group in Hulugho that left two public servants dead and a trail of destruction.
The meeting chaired by Ijara Member of Parliament Abdi Ali Sheikhow saw top security brass in the region discuss possible ways of averting further infiltration of the insurgents into the country.
The Hulugho Sub County security committee had meet local elders to brainstorm on how the community could cooperate will law enforcement agencies by offering critical information in time to prevent recurrence of a similar attack, in which a local chief and a teacher were shot dead.
Speakers at the meeting underscored the importance of maintaining security at the Hulugho border town due to its proximity to the troubled southern Somalia region of Kolbio and the Boni forest, where the offshoots of the Al-Qaeda terror group had set bases.
The deliberate targeted killing of Boma location chief Abdifatah Gani and Hulugho Primary School Teacher Stephen Musili earlier in the week has thrown security agencies back to the drawing board, as the presence of several military installations in the region appears not to have deterred the rag tag militants.
The meeting comes as armored personnel carriers and a convoy of Kenya Defence Forces vehicles were spotted ferrying troops towards Hulugho border town and the disturbed Boni Forest.
Fear has gripped local administrators with some raising concern over their safety, while appealing to Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen to issue them with firearms for self-defense, following the untimely assassination of their colleague.
The killing has also sparked anxiety among the non-local teaching staff, with majority of then now seeking transfers, after it emerged that their slain colleague merely suffered collateral damage in a wider scheme to eliminate the administrator.
However, teachers unions including the Kenya Nation Union of Teacher (KNUT) and Kenya Union of Post Primary teachers ( KUPPET), as well as Union of Kenya Civil Servants (UKCS) representative have urged the local community to work closely with security apparatus to restore the confidence of non-local members to work in the region.
By Mohamed Dahir
