Kenya has sent some of its best-trained police officers to tackle gangs in Haiti, but at home its security forces have struggled to stop cattle-rustling and banditry in the north of the country that has displaced thousands and led to an endless cycle of violence.

The Kenyan government has deployed 400 of an expected contingent of 1,000 special forces police to Haiti as part of a UN-approved security mission. The intervention has faced legal challenges, and widespread criticism that the government is neglecting communities in its North Rift region that constantly need police escorts just to fetch firewood and water, or drive safely along the major roads.

President William Ruto argues that his administration can do both – help Haiti and restore peace in the North Rift, where the violence between rival pastoralist communities is unrelenting, and repeated disarmament initiatives have failed.

But Velma Mkaudi, a resident of Kapedo in Turkana County, an area plagued by insecurity, is not convinced. “We are living like prisoners in our own homes. The 1,000 police officers the government is sending to Haiti could have helped a lot here,” she says. “You cannot purport to help outside when your own home is burning.”

Banditry has killed as many as 300 people in the region since last year, according to a new report.*

The North Rift region is made up of five counties: Turkana, Baringo, Samburu, Elgeyo Marakwet and West Pokot. It’s known for its beautiful rugged terrain, arid landscapes and rich cultural heritage. Pastoralist communities – including the Turkana, Pokot, and Samburu – dominate the region.

I travelled across Baringo, Turkana, and Samburu counties to try and understand what drives the communal violence, and to hear from residents on whether they felt the government was doing enough to bring peace and develop the area.

It’s a region that for generations has been plagued by cattle-rustling, where rival communities have fought over control of grazing areas. The conflict has escalated and turned more deadly with the commercialisation of cattle-rustling and the proliferation of illegal weapons.

The violence has left the area extremely insecure, underdeveloped and isolated. That’s at least how I felt – isolated and insecure – driving from Marigat to Kagir Primary School in Chemolingot, Baringo County.

In 2023, at the height of the insecurity, the school’s headteacher, Thomas Kibet, was shot dead by pastoralist militias. Residents fled for safety, and it wasn’t until June this year that some started returning.

The 2023 attack was part of the continuous competition over grazing land between pastoralists from Turkana and Baringo counties. The aim of the violence has been to displace residents from the area so as to access grazing land and steal their cattle.

The road, a muddy track winding through the undulating hills is barely visible – a clear indication that vehicles rarely came here. Abandoned mud-straw houses cling to the side of the road, with no sign of life.

While small-scale cattle-raiding has long been a cultural practice among the pastoralist communities of the North Rift – carried out to replenish herds, for dowry payment and as initiation into manhood – it was a traditionally well-regulated affair and loss of life was rare, entailing compensation when it did occur. However, commercialisation of the practice, coupled with the proliferation of small arms, has sidelined community elders and turned it into a deadly business, financed by new actors supplying markets regionally and further afield.

Along with the historic marginalisation of the area dating to colonial times, this has generated a complex security problem.

Conflict has been exacerbated by years of worsening droughts that have diminished grazing areas. The creation of county borders has also limited pastoralist movement, which is key to the herding economy and lifestyle.

Some residents of Baringo County migrating in search of better pasture and water.

Then there are the estimated 650,000 illegal weapons in the hands of the region’s young men, smuggled through Kenya’s porous borders with South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, which has made cattle-rustling so deadly.

Mary Lorengei was among the 12 families that had just returned to Kagir when The New Humanitarian visited. Still afraid to go back to their original homes, they had set up camp at the school where they felt safer because of a police post in the school grounds.

She and the rest of the women and their 22 children sleep in a single tent donated by the World Health Organization. The boys and the men sleep in classrooms on the bare floor because of insufficient bedding.

As we talked, she explained what had driven her from her home and into this current state of destitution – dependent on well-wishers and the county government to provide food and other basics.

“Things started getting bad in 2022. They [pastoralist militia] stole all our animals. It went on until 2023, when they started grazing their cows even outside our homes, daring us to fight back,” said Lorengei.

“Then they started killing people. They would waylay people on the road and kill them. They even killed the headmaster. It became very risky,” she said. “Even getting food became a problem.”

In March last year, the “bandits” – as they are commonly referred to – made a direct attack on Kagir, but the police fought them off. Lorengei and over 2,500 other residents fled the village.

Some residents who fled the area in March 2023 have returned and set up camp in Kagir Primary School, where they feel safe because of police presence. They are living in tiny tents, about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, erected using twigs on bare ground.

Almost 60 children have resumed learning at Kagir Primary School, but more than half of them do not know where their parents or any family members are. They were separated when everyone fled – and stuck with whichever adult they were familiar with or whoever took them in – and are still hoping their families will come and find them.

When Lorengei and the other families returned in June, nobody could recognise their homes anymore: They had been vandalised, some razed to the ground, and now, after more than a year, have been erased by creeping vegetation.

Almost everyone is too afraid to venture beyond the school compound to the nearby forest to fetch wood for construction to enable them to rebuild their lives.

“For how long will we live like this – in tents, no houses?,” said Lorengei, a mother of eight who has sent her children to live with relatives away from the North Rift. “This [school] is the only safe place, because of the police presence.”

• The New Humanitarian report