Herders suspects in shooting of conservationist
nairobi, kenya» Italian-born author and conservationist Kuki Gallmann was shot at her Kenyan ranch and airlifted to a hospital in Nairobi for treatment after herders invaded in search of pasture to save their animals from drought, officials said Sunday.
Gallmann, known for her best-selling book “I Dreamed of Africa,” which became a movie by the same name starring Kim Basinger, was patrolling the ranch in Laikipia when she was shot in the stomach, local police Chief Ezekiel Chepkowny said.
Gallmann, 73, was in stable condition Sunday night after surgery but had serious injuries.
Gallmann had been with rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service, assessing damage done to her property Saturday by arsonists who burned down buildings at one of the Laikipia Nature Conservancy’s tourism lodges, said Laikipia Farmers Association chairman Martin Evans.
Richard Constant, the association’s deputy chairman, said suspicion falls on herders from the Pokot community who have invaded Gallmann’s ranch several times. Lodges belonging to Gallmann were burned by the herders last month.
This East African nation is facing a drought that has affected half the country and has been declared a national disaster.
Herders, whose livelihoods depend on their cattle, and large-scale farmers in parts of Kenya’s Rift Valley have been desperately waiting for seasonal rains that were to start last month to ease the drought and conflicts over grazing land in which more than 30 people have died.
Kenya’s military and police have been working to disarm and drive the hundreds of herders and their animals out of ranches they have invaded, but their actions appear to have escalated the violence.
The association has accused politicians campaigning for the August elections of inciting the herders to invade the ranches, saying the owners’ leases have come to an end and that herders can take over the land and distribute it among themselves.
The land invasions started late last year.
Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga said ranch owners deserve protection under the law like all Kenyans.
Many of the ranches, some of which double as wildlife conservancies, were acquired during the period of British colonial rule, some as early as 1900, according to a government report. Others were purchased after Kenya became an independent nation in 1963.