Murkomen admits govt still in the dark over missing Todonyang fishermen
By Cy Muganda, July 17, 2025Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has admitted that the government is yet to establish the fate of over 40 fishermen and herders who went missing following a cross-border attack in Todonyang, Turkana County, in February 2025.
Speaking during the Jukwaa la Usalama County tour in Lodwar on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, Murkomen revealed that efforts to verify the actual number of missing persons have been complicated by the lack of recoverable bodies and conflicting reports from across the Kenya-Ethiopia border.
“There are still pending verification of the exact numbers, partly because people who are suspected to have lost their lives lost inside the lake. So in the absence of finding the bodies, it’s become very difficult to verify the exact numbers,” Murkomen said.
Unconfirmed reports
He further noted that there were unconfirmed reports suggesting some of the victims could still be alive and being held in Ethiopia, but cast doubt over the credibility of such claims months after the incident.
“Some reports also indicate that there are some people who are still alive and they are in the other part of Ethiopia, and so forth. But I don’t know if that can be true for such a long period of time,” he stated.
Murkomen attributed the numerical discrepancies to the diverse origins of the fishing crews, explaining that victims were not exclusively from the Todonyang community.
“There is a disparity in numbers in Todonyang. It’s because not everybody who was in the lake comes from the community in Todonyang there. Some even could have come from all the way to from Kitale,” he clarified.
Todonyang attack
On February 22, 2025, a group of Kenyan fishermen on a routine fishing mission in Lake Turkana came under attack by suspected Dassanech militia from Ethiopia.
In the days that followed, the government launched a search and rescue mission in coordination with Ethiopian authorities.
Murkomen, who visited the region on February 24, 2025, alongside senior security officials, said at the time that the government had formed a team to negotiate with Ethiopian authorities to allow access to the area where the attack occurred.
“I visited the area to assess the state of affairs… We formed a team led by the Regional Commissioner to negotiate with Ethiopian authorities to facilitate access to the Ethiopian side,” Murkomen said in a statement dated February 26, 2025.
A subsequent joint operation between Kenyan and Ethiopian teams led to the recovery of two bodies—one male and one female—though dozens more remained unaccounted for.
“Further to my earlier update on the ongoing search of missing Kenyans following the Todanyang incident, I would like to report that two bodies of a man and a woman, estimated to be aged between late 20s and early 30s, have been recovered,” Murkomen shared in a subsequent statement issued on February 26, 2025.
Vulnerable entry-point
In response to the ongoing security challenges, Murkomen has proposed the establishment of a multi-agency security team in Todonyang, describing the region as a vulnerable entry point plagued by insecurity and border encroachment due to a weak security presence.
“There’s also boundary encroachment because of the absence of proper security presence in that particular area,” he noted on July 16, 2025.