Kenyan police used tear gas violently to disperse at least 200 Maasai tribesmen who were demonstrating in the capital, Nairobi, to demand their land back, an AFP journalist reported.
”We have used force to put off the demonstration because it was illegal,” central Nairobi police chief Julius Ndegwa said as riot police charged on the Maasai, who were dressed in traditional gear.
”We have arrested quite a number of ringleaders and recovered knives from them because this meeting was illegal,” Ndegwa added.
Ndegwa explained that nobody was injured but Maasai leaders said up to 10 people were wounded in the running battles that ensued.
Over the weekend, an elderly Maasai herder was shot dead and 50 arrested in central Kenya when paramilitary police moved to chase Maasais who had invaded white settler farms.
The arrested have been charged with trespassing.
At least 200 Maasai youth and leaders from across Kenya had gathered in Uhuru Park, on the southern edge of Nairobi central business district, to press for the return of nearly a million hectares that were given to British settlers a century ago, under a lease signed in 1904.
The lease expired on August 15.
On August 13, hundreds of Maasais protested across Kenya in a similar cause, but their appeals were rejected by Lands Minister Amos Kimunya. — Sapa-AFP