Over 300 killed, 220k displaced in Kenya conflicts: UN

Violent conflicts in Kenya have left more than 300 people killed and over 220,000 displaced this year, the United Nations says.

“By [the] end [of] October 2014, 310 people had lost their lives, 214 had been injured and 220,177 had fled their homes…,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report published on Thursday.

The report blamed the casualties on a number of factors including cattle rustling, revenge attacks between rival communities, struggles for political representation, and competition for land and water resources.

The number of the Kenyans forced to flee their homes is said to be four times that of 2013.

“Displacement figures have sharply increased in 2014 due to increase in number and frequency of droughts leading to resource-based clashes,” the report added.

On Tuesday, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta removed the country’s police chief and interior minister in an attempt to appease public outrage over the government’s inability to restore peace and security to the African country’s northern part.

The development came after Somalia-based al-Shabab militants opened fire on a group of quarry workers in Kenya’s northeastern Mandera region, killing 36 of them.

Kenya currently has over 3,000 soldiers stationed in southern Somalia, where they have been battling al-Shabab. The country sent troops into Somalia in late 2011, after the militant group carried out a series of raids inside Kenya.

The al-Shabab militants have been pushed out of the Somali capital Mogadishu and other major cities in the country by the African Union Mission in Somalia, which is made up of troops from Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Kenya.