A fact-finding committee tasked to resolve the conflict between cattle herders and farmers in Lainya County said it had recovered over 200 heads of cattle from the herders last week.

The committee said the recovered cattle were handed over to the chiefs and owners on Friday.

Aggrey Cyrus, the chairperson of the committee told Radio Tamazuj that the Pojulu and Mundari communities agreed to return stolen cattle to pave way for peaceful co-existence in the state.

“Following the reconciliatory talks between the two communities, we have so far 280 cows returned to the owners and some of the cows are still waiting to be given to the owners,” he said.

For his part, Putia Gore one of the pastoralists in Lainya confirmed that his group has handed over 100 cows to the local leaders in Lainya County and will cont. 

Gore said the pastoralists will return all the looted cattle to promote reconciliation and peaceful co-existence.

“We have handed over 115 cows and we gave to the people of Lainya, the raiding happened because we were attacked in Lainya by unknown people and we shall return all their raided cattle because we don’t want to have problems with the people of Lainya and they should not have problems with us,” he assured.  

The Paramount Chief of Lainya County, Simon Ladu, confirmed to Radio Tamazuj over the weekend that he had received some of the raided cattle through the peace committee.

“We have received some cattle from the Mundari pastoralists and for sure we don’t have problems with Mundari cattle herders moving in the Pojulu land and because we need peace among ourselves, all our raided cattle should be returned to the rightful owners and we continue living in peace with one another,” Ladu said.

Earlier this month, Mundari pastoralists clashed in Lainya County resulting in the death of three people, according to the fact-finding committee.